This column offers a sampling of honors recently awarded to UC Davis faculty, staff and units:

Professor Lisa R. Pruitt has been elected as co-chair of the Rural Studies Interest Group of the Rural Sociological Society, a professional social science association that promotes the generation, application and dissemination of sociological knowledge and seeks to enhance the quality of rural life, communities and the environment. Pruitt is a professor at the UC Davis School of Law whose recent scholarship explores how rural spatiality inflects dimensions of gender, race, and ethnicity. Her work also considers rural-urban difference in transnational and international contexts.

The Genetics Society of America has awarded its prestigious Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal to John Roth, distinguished professor of microbiology. Roth, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and an expert in bacterial genetics, genetic regulation and evolution, joined UC Davis in 2002.

In writing about Roth’s lifetime of achievements, the society noted in the March issue of its journal Genetics that, “the field of genetics has been strongly influenced by the work of John Roth and his laboratory.” The society also commended Roth for his many graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Jinyi Qi, an associate professor of biomedical engineering, has been selected to receive the Early Achievement Award from the IEEE Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society. The selection committee cited Qi for his contributions to computational nuclear medical imaging, particularly his work on statistically based, three-dimensional image reconstruction.

Qi and his lab group focus on development of new and improved computational methods for molecular imaging using positron emission tomography, computed tomography, and other technologies. In addition to the medical applications of their research, they are also working on improving techniques of detecting nuclear materials that might be hidden in cargo containers.

Qi, who has been at UC Davis since 2004, is also a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Siobhán Brady is the recipient of this year’s American Society of Plant Biologists’ Early Career Award with an accompanying $2,000 monetary prize. The award recognizes “exceptionally creative, independent contributions by a member of the society.”

Brady, an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Biology and the Genome Center, focuses on understanding how a network of transcriptional interactions regulates gene expression and tissue development and function in plants. The Early Career Award comes with a bonus: If Brady chooses to accept it at the society’s annual ceremony in Hawaii in July, she will also receive $1,000 to defray travel costs.

Professor Jorge Dubcovsky has been named the 2009 recipient of American Society of Plant Biologist’s Hoagland award “for outstanding plant research in support of agriculture.” The American Society of Plant Biologists is a professional society devoted to the advancement of plant sciences.

R. Paul Singh, a distinguished professor of food engineering and an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, has been selected to receive the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award from Michigan State University in East Lansing. The award is presented annually to alumni who have obtained the highest level of professional accomplishments. Singh joined the UC Davis faculty in 1975 and holds a joint appointment in the departments of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Food Science and Technology.