The month of March is sounding pretty good to composer Kurt Rohde, a professor in the Department of Music.

Rohde

First he learned he’s the recipient of a music award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He’s one of 16 winners, and one of four who each receives $10,000 for outstanding accomplishments and $10,000 toward the cost of recording one of his or her works.

Later this week, his first opera, Death With Interruptions, will have its premiere performances, with music by the Left Coast Chamber Ensemble of which he is a member, playing the viola.

The opera is based on José Saramango’s 2005 novel of the same name, in which “Death” comes calling for an orchestra’s cellist and falls in love with him. UC Berkeley history professor Thomas Laqueur wrote the libretto.

Performances are scheduled Thursday and Saturday (March 19 and 21) at San Francisco’s ODC Theatre, with UC Davis music lecturer Matilda Hofman as the conductor. More information is available online. See a video preview.

Rohde, who came to UC Davis in 2006, teaches composition and theory, and is co-director of the university’s contemporary music group, the Empyrean Ensemble.

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The Center for Regional Change and its director, Jonathan London, are the recipients of a Random Kindness Community Resilience Award from Breakthrough Communities Project in Oakland.

London is an assistant professor in the Department of Human and Community Development.

The award presentation took place during the center’s recent forum: Making Data Matter, which served as a book lunch event for What Counts: Harnessing Data for America's Communities, a new publication of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Urban Institute. London and others at the center for Regional Change wrote one of the book’s chapters, “Putting Data Into Action for Regional Equity in California's San Joaquin Valley.”

Breakthrough Communities co-founder Carl Anthony gave the forum’s keynote — and took the opportunity to present the award.

The Center for Regional Change is a  catalyst for multidisciplinary and action-oriented research that informs efforts to build healthy, prosperous, equitable and sustainable regions.

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Professor David Horton is the recipient of the School of Law’s 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award, presented at the school’s Celebratiung King Hall event held earlier this month.

Horton specializes in trusts, wills and alternative dispute resolution. He joined the law school faculty in 2012 and previously taught in the law schools at UC Berkeley and Loyola University.

He earned his law degree at UCLA, where he graduated Order of the Coif in 2004 and served as the chief articles editor of the UCLA Law Review. He then practiced at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster and clerked for Judge Ronald M. Whyte of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. 

Horton recently won the Association of American Law Schools Scholarly Paper Competition, open to faculty members who have been teaching for five years or less. The winning article, “In Partial Defense of Probate: Evidence from Alameda County, California,” is due for opublication in The Georgetown Law Journal.

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Jesus De Loera, professor of mathematics, has been elected to the executive committee of the council of the American Mathematical Society. His four-year term began March 1. Read a profile on De Loera as a mentor.

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Two faculty members in the College of Engineering are new fellows of IEEE, a professional association for engineers and technologists:

• Chen-Nee Huah, professor of electrical and computer engineering, recognized for her work on multipath network communications and network management.
• Dan Gusfield, professor of computer science, recognized for his work on mathematics and computer science applied to biology

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Karl Levitt, professor of computer science, has received the 2014 Jean-Claude LaPrie Award in Dependable Computing from the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 10.4 on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance.

The award recognizes outstanding papers that have significantly influenced the theory and/or practice of dependable computing.

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Barbara Allen-Diaz, who leads UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, recently received the Society for Range Management’s highest award. The Frederick G. Renner Award recognizes society members for sustained accomplishments or contributions to rangeland management, over a period of 10 years leading up to the award.

Allen-Diaz, a professor at UC Berkeley, where she holds the Russell Rustici Chair in Rangeland Management, researches the effects of livestock grazing on natural resources, oak woodlands and ecosystems of the Sierra Nevada.

Allen-Diaz is the first woman to receive the Renner award in the society’s 68-year history.

In 2001, she received the society’s Outstanding Achievemtn Award, and in 2002 the California chapter named her Range Manager of the Year.

She joined UC in 1986 and has served as ANR vice president since  2011.

Read the complete ANR news release.

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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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