13 assistant professors join the ranks of Hellman Fellows.

Dateline staff

Jeffery Gibeling, dean of Graduate Studies, has been named to a new commission tasked with examining how the United States can be more effective at guiding students through graduate school and into professional careers.

The commission comprises nine university leaders and five corporate leaders, plus two officio members: the presidents of the two organizations that convened the commission: the Council of Graduate Schools and the Educational Testing Service.

According to an ETS news release, the commission grew out of the 2010 report “The Path Forward: The Future of Graduate Education in the United States.” The report argued that the nation’s future prosperity and ability to compete in the global marketplace depended on producing graduate degree holders prepared to address the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

In identifying unmet needs, the report cited a lack of understanding of the pathways through graduate school and into the world of professional occupations.

Thus the Commission to Study Pathways through Graduate School and Into Careers was born. Its report is due to be released at the CGS annual legislative conference, April 19.

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Ricardo Castro is the recipient of this year’s Young Investigator Award from the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.

Castro is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and the Peter A. Rock Thermochemistry Laboratory.

Candidates for the Young Investigator Award must have contributed in an outstanding and innovative way to the progress of research in any field of science and engineering.

A group of engineers employed by the city of Los Angeles founded the society in 1974, as a means by which Hispanic professionals could serve as role models for the Hispanic community.

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UC Davis has two new journal editors in the faculty ranks:

• Simon Cherry, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, and director of the Center for Molecular and Genomic Imaging, has been named editor-in-chief of Physics in Medicine & Biology, which is affiliated with the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

The journal covers the application of practical and theoretical physics to medicine and biology, and is especially concerned with cutting-edge research in the areas of radiotherapy physics and medical imaging.

• Professor Rebecca Parales of the Department of Microbiology is one of three people newly appointed as editors of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Parales has served on the editorial boards of this journal and another, the Journal of Bacteriology, for several years, and she regularly reviews for numerous other microbiology and biotechnology journals.

Her research focuses on the bacterial degradation of aromatic compounds, particularly xenobiotic compounds, and bacterial chemotaxis to pollutants and synthetic chemicals.

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The Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE, announced the appointment of Vice Chancellor “Babs” Sandeen to the CASE Commission on Alumni Relations.

Sandeen has headed University Relations and External Relations since 2005, and formerly served as assistant vice chancellor for Alumni Relations and executive director of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association.

In other CASE commission news, Lisa Lapin, assistant vice president for University Communications at Stanford, has been elected chair of the Commission on Communications and Marketing. Lapin formerly served as assistant vice chancellor of University Communications at UC Davis.

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Themis Michailides, a plant pathologist at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, is a new fellow of the American Phytopathological Society, in recognition of distinguished contributions to plant pathology.

Michailides is a leading authority in fungal fruit tree pathology, and he is recognized internationally for his innovative ecological, epidemiological, and disease-management studies of devastating diseases of fruit and nut crops. Private laboratories around the world have adopted his methods to predict disease risks.

In addition to his applied research program, Michailides has made major contributions to fundamental plant pathology.

The American Phytopathological Society honored Michailides and eight other new fellows during the society’s annual meeting, held this summer in Honolulu.

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The American Planning Association, California Chapter, recently presented its Distinguished Leadership Award to UC Davis Extension’s Land Use and Natural Resources Program.

The award recognizes the program for sustained and significant contributions to the planning profession, and commitment to excellence in urban, community, regional and environmental planning education for professionals.

Jeff Loux, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, has served as the director of UC Davis Extension’s Land Use and Natural Resources Program since 2000.

He credited the program’s 30 years of success to the many UC Davis colleagues and professionals who helped in creating and developing the program — people like former directors Mike McCoy and Elizabeth Grassi. Both of them are still with UC Davis, affiliated with the Urban Land Use and Transportation Center in the Institute of Transportation Studies

This year Julia Lave Johnston joined Loux as co-director, while he doubles as chair of UC Davis Extension’s Science, Agriculture and Natural Resources Department — a job that he took on two years ago.

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Professor Tom Tomich has been named an expert adviser to AGree, a new initiative to transform food and agricultural policy. Agree is funded by several foundations: Ford, Bill and Melinda Gates, William and Flora Hewlett, W.K. Kellogg, McKnight, Rockefeller, David and Lucile Packard and Walton Family.

Tomich is the inaugural holder of W.K. Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food Systems, and a professor in the Department of Human and Community Development and the Department of Environmental Science and Policy. He is director of the UC Davis Agricultural Sustainability Institute and the UC-wide Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program.

The AGree experts panel will guide the commissioning of analytical studies and thought pieces on AGree’s issues, as well as participate in and facilitate informative panels that lead to a better understanding across academic and policy fields.

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