Mangun

George R. “Ron” Mangun, founding director of the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, and outgoing dean of the Division of Social Sciences, will spend six months in the Netherlands as a Radboud Excellence Initiative professor.

During the 2015-16 academic year — while he is on sabbatical from UC Davis — he will conduct research at the Max Planck Institute and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, both in Njimegen.

G.J.M. Meijer, president of Radboud University Nijmegen, said the Radboud Excellence Initiative aims to develop ties with “highly regarded scientists from around the world.”

Mangun, a distinguished professor of psychology and neurology, is an authority on the cognitive neuroscience of attention and awareness.

He announced May 5 that he would step down as dean and return to the faculty effective July 1, or as soon as an interim dean can be appointed. He has served as dean since 2008.

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Crump

Amanda Crump, associate director of the Horticulture Innovation Lab, recently received a distinguished service award from the Association for International Agriculture and Rural Development.

The Horticulture Innovation Lab focuses on fruit and vegetable research to help reduce poverty and improve nutrition around the world.

Crump leads the program’s gender equity focus and is responsible for monitoring a portfolio of research projects. Her own research focuses on novel practices for agricultural extension education for farmers — particularly women — in developing countries.

The award presentation took place at the association’s annual conference, held this year in Washington, D.C. Crump attended as an award recipient and the association’s outgoing secretary-treasurer.

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Charles Bamforth, the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professor of Malting and Brewing Sciences, is headed to Scotland to receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

The degree, to be conferred during commencement this Friday (June 26), recognizes his contributions to brewing science throughout his career.

Bamforth began working in the brewing industry in 1978 in England. He served as the deputy director-general of Brewing Research International and research manager and quality assurance manager of Bass Brewers before coming to UC Davis in 1999.

Here he leads the oldest and most acclaimed brewing science program of its kind in the United States. The program, part of the Department of Food Science and Technology, has graduated hundreds of students who have gone on to careers in the brewing and brewing-supply industries throughout North America and beyond.

Bamforth has written numerous books for both academic and lay audiences, and is serving today as the 63rd president of the Institute of Brewing and Distilling.

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The Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges will give its Communications Excellence Award this year to the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine team of Linda Ybarra (communications and marketing director), Katie Blakewell, Rob Warren and Trina Wood.

The award, to be presented in July, recognizes communications efforts in 2014. Over the course of that year, the UC Davis team leveraged stories across a variety of platforms to reach a broad audience through The New York Times, National Public Radio, National Geographic blogs, television networks, and other major media around the nation and world.

Top hits included “Rebuilding Our Badly Broken Pets,” featuring UC Davis’ pioneering work in maxillofacial reconstruction, in which veterinary dental surgeons and biomedical engineers are collaborating to save pets that otherwise might have been euthanized; and “Scientists Step up Work to Find and Contain the Ebolas of the Future,” about the critical role of researchers in identifying dangerous viruses before they cross from animals to people.

Dean Michael Lairmore praised the team for considering current events and topics already in the news, and creating opportunities to promote the faculty’s efforts on related issues. Collectively, the team responded to approximately 500 media inquiries in 2014.

In social media, with posts featuring photos and video clips, the School of Veterinary Medicine during 2014 saw a 70 percent increase in Facebook page “likes” (up to 23,000 today) and a 25 percent increase in Twitter followers (now up to 10,100).

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Mary Delany and Alison Van Eenennaam of the Department of Animal Science are among “20 Outstanding Animal Science Professors” as named by VetTechColleges.com, a website for people interested in careers as veterinary assistants, technicians and technologists.

Delany, an avian geneticist, is a professor and executive associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Van Eenennaam is a geneticist and UC Cooperative Extension specialist in animal genomics and biotechnology.

Delany joined the departments of Avian Science and Animal Science in 1995 (they subsequently merged). Her teaching has included courses in animal cytogenetics, avian development and genetics, and integrated animal biology.

Over the past two decades, Delany has developed a strong research program in avian development and genetics, and integrated animal biology. Primarily working with chickens, she has focused on avian genome organization and the role that genome sequence and its specialized architecture play in regulating growth, development and disease.

Van Eenennaam joined the Department of Animal Science in 2002.  Her work focuses on developing science-based educational materials about the uses of animal genomics and biotechnology in livestock production systems.

She has served on advisory committees in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, providing expert counsel on animal biotechnology. She frequently speaks to the public and policymakers about agricultural biotechnology and provides science-based commentary to the media on sometimes-controversial topics, including genetic engineering and cloning.

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Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards, for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.

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