Numerous UC Davis faculty members have recent fellowships, elections to associations, awards and more to add to their curriculum vitaes. Dateline UC Davis is presenting a roundup of some of those honors in this column: Read on for more information.

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

Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award

Commitment. Passion. Empathy. These descriptors were just a few of the plaudits the winners of the 2024 Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award received in their nomination letters.

“[This professor’s] mentorship is always the perfect balance of pushing you to your full capacity, while also supporting at a level that fosters independence, creativity and self-ownership.”

“[This professor] combines a deep sense of empathy with a steely commitment to student development.”

“[This professor’s] mentorship has not only enriched my academic experience but has also instilled in me a deep sense of confidence and passion for my field of study.”

Among the 27 faculty members who won this year’s award, five were from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, five were from the College of Biological Sciences, seven were from the College of Engineering, eight were from the College of Letters and Sciences, and two were from the School of Veterinary Medicine.

Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship

Michael Rios, vice provost of Public Scholarship and Engagement, is one of 31 international scholars and leaders inducted into the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship, or ACES, in 2024. The honor recognizes his more than 20 years of experience and expertise in advancing community engaged research, teaching and learning.

Founded in 2013, ACES is an organization of leading community engagement scholars and practitioners who are recognized for advancing scholarship that serves the public good. ACES highlights scholarship that has direct societal impact on complex societal needs and issues. ACES provides a non-partisan, transdisciplinary, research and practice-based voice for community engagement scholarship through its cultivation of partnerships with national and international associations, groups, and initiatives that promote high quality community engagement scholarship.

Society for Neuroscience award

Ron Mangun, distinguished professor of psychology and neurology and co-director of the Center for Mind and Brain, has been awarded the 2024 Award for Education in Neuroscience by the Society for Neuroscience. This prize recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to undergraduate- and graduate-level neuroscience education and training. 

“This recognition is truly well-deserved, and we are honored to have Ron Mangun as a faculty member,” said Estella Atekwana, dean of the College of Letters and Science. “His dedication to education and the impact he has had on the field are an inspiration to us all.”

Microsoft Research AI & Society Fellow

As an organizational ethnographer, Graduate School of Management Professor Beth Bechky explores the future of work and how workers collaborate to solve problems, struggle to coordinate, and manage the challenges of technological change. 

Recently, Bechky with her colleague Professor Melissa Mazmanian of UC Irvine, was named a Microsoft Research AI & Society Fellow. The fellows program supports interdisciplinary AI research in the context of societal impact, offering opportunities for fellows from fields beyond core computer sciences to join and support interdisciplinary research conversations with Microsoft researchers.

In collaboration with the Microsoft fellows cohort, Bechky will study how screenwriters are responding to the use of generative AI in Hollywood and how current technologies, social structures, and economic models are shaping the future of creative work in a world of generative AI.

“We have the opportunity to ask critical questions about how screenwriters’ work is changing in response to the challenges of generative AI in the film and television industry,” Bechky said.

New Economic Research and Policy Scholars Program

Finance Professor Robert Marquez of the Graduate School of Management has been named as one of five distinguished researchers to join the Conference of State Bank Supervisors’ new Economic Research and Policy Scholars Program.

The program consists of distinguished scholars selected from academic institutions nationwide for their expertise and contributions to the field. They are appointed for two-year terms.

“Their work will significantly enhance our understanding of the evolving financial landscape, and we look forward to the insights and innovations they will bring,” said Conference of State Bank Supervisors President and CEO Brandon Milhorn in an announcement about the inaugural class.

A leading expert in banking and corporate finance, Marquez researches the mechanisms that underlie the behavior of financial institutions. 

American Law Institute

Law Professor Brian Soucek has been elected to the American Law Institute, the nation’s premier non-governmental law reform organization. UC Davis Law now counts 26 current or emeriti faculty in the ALI.

A professor of law and UC Davis Chancellor’s Fellow, Soucek joined the King Hall faculty in 2013. Before arriving in Davis, he clerked for the late Mark R. Kravitz, United States District Judge for the District of Connecticut, and the Hon. Guido Calabresi of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He previously taught for three years in the Humanities Collegiate Division and Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago, where he was Collegiate Assistant Professor and co-chair of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts.

James I. Mueller Award

Subhash Risbud, Distinguished Professor emeritus in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, has received the 2025 James I. Mueller Award from the American Ceramic Society, or ACerS.

The award honors individuals who have provided long-term service to the organization's Engineering Ceramics Division and produced work in the field of engineering ceramics and glasses that have made a significant industrial, international or academic impact.

In addition to glasses and ceramics, Risbud's work includes investigations into optical and photonic materials such as quantum dot nanostructures grown in glass sheets that may make transmitting signals in telecommunication optics — like those in a high-definition television screen — more effective.