Mental health research at the University of California, Davis, has received dedicated endowed support thanks to Bryan Cameron ’80, director of research and senior vice president at Dodge & Cox Investment Managers.

Professor Jonathan Eisen, named the first Aggie Hero of 2019-20 for calling out science meeting organizers for gender and racial imbalance among presenters, last week landed on a Time magazine list of 16 people and groups “fighting for a more equal America.”

The award recognizes outstanding teaching and dedication to student success. Leal will be honored with other Academic Senate and Academic Federation award recipients at a ceremony in the spring.

Professor John Harada, Department of Plant Biology, was recently recognized by Japan’s Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) with an honorary doctorate of science. The honor comes after over a decade of fruitful collaboration between the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences and NAIST.

The National Academy of Inventors announced today the election of 168 new fellows, including Walter Leal, distinguished professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Professors Jonathan Eisen and Veronica Martínez-Cerdeño were awarded the 2019 ADVANCE Scholar Award for their work to improve gender equity in STEM through their teaching, research and service in addition to encouraging research, leadership, and outreach to underserved communities and/or mentorship of underrepresented students.

Last year, Associate Professor Siobhan Brady and her colleagues published “a core set of genes that are critical in nitrogen metabolism” in Nature. For her research, Brady was recognized with the 2018-2019 College of Biological Sciences Faculty Research Award.

In December 2018, Distinguished Professor Venkatesan Sundaresan and his colleagues published in Nature a method that allowed them to produce clonal seeds directly from plants, bypassing the sexual reproduction process. Replicating this process in the lab could prove vital to providing the world’s farmers with high-yielding, disease-resistant or climate-resistant food crops.

For nearly two decades, Professor Julin Maloof has shined a light on biological knowledge for UC Davis students, introducing computational methods to the life sciences curriculum. For his dedication to his students, Maloof received the 2018-2019 Faculty Teaching Award.

UC Davis alumnus H. Michael Shepard last Friday (Sept. 20) received one of the 2019 Lasker Awards, widely considered America’s top biomedical research prizes.