Physics professors John S. Conway and Steven Carlip have been elected fellows of the American Physical Society, an honor bestowed on fewer than 15 percent of the society’s 40,000 members. The society cited Carlip for his contributions to black hole physics and to the study of gravity in the dimensions of space and time. Conway was recognized for outstanding contributions in the search for a sub-atomic particle known as the Higgs boson and his work using high-energy particle accelerators.

John Werner, professor in the UC Davis Health System Eye Center, has received the Lighthouse International Pisart Vision Award, a major U.S. prize honoring people who have made an extraordinary contribution to the prevention, cure or treatment of severe vision impairment or blindness. The award was established in 1981 and includes a prize of $35,000 and a glass sculpture created by a blind individual.

Professor emeritus Carole Meredith has been named to the 2009 Vintners Hall of Fame by the Culinary Institute of America. Meredith and her research group in the Department of Viticulture and Enology used DNA typing methods to discover the origins of several wine varieties, including Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Zinfandel.

Jessie Ann Owens, professor of music and dean of the UC Davis Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, has been elected an honorary member of the American Musicological Society. Owens is the 58th member to be elected to the prestigious society in its 74-year history. In announcing her election, the society heralded Owens as “a leading scholar of Renaissance music” who has made outstanding contributions to musicology, the scholarly study of music.

Assistant Professor Mary Cadenasso in the Department of Plant Sciences has landed a $575,000 award from the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program. The program is one of the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious awards, given in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research.

Professor emeritus Timothy O’Brien of the School of Veterinary Medicine was recently honored for significantly impacting the development and training of equine veterinarians. The Distinguished Educator Award was presented to O’Brien by the American Association of Equine Practitioners during the organization’s annual meeting in San Diego. O’Brien, a veterinary radiologist, specialized in characterizing bone and joint problems of horses and spent much of his career at UC Davis. He has trained approximately 120 large-animal and equine surgery residents.

Deanne Meyer, Cooperative Extension specialist in livestock waste management, has been named the Western Dairy Business 2009 Outstanding Dairy Industry Educator/Researcher. Meyer was honored at the World Ag Expo, the world’s largest annual agricultural exposition, held recently in Tulare, Calif.

Carl Winter, a Cooperative Extension food toxicologist and director of the UC Davis FoodSafe Program in the Department of Food Science and Technology, received the 2009 Food Safety Leadership Award for Education and Training from NSF, a national food safety certification company. Winter, widely known for producing, distributing and performing musical parodies with a food safety theme, is being recognized for making a “real and lasting impact on the foodservice industry.” The award was presented April 27 during the Food Safety Summit in Washington, D.C.

Tonya Fancher, an assistant professor of internal medicine and associate program director for the department’s residency training program, has been selected as the first recipient of the Putnam Scholars Program, sponsored by the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare. The $9,000 Putnam Scholarship will help support an educational program Fancher is developing to teach medical residents the importance of understanding a patient's culture to build a trusting relationship.

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.”

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, 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, Department of Plant Sciences, has been named the 2009 recipient of the American Society of Plant Biologists' Dennis R. Hoagland award “For outstanding plant research in support of agriculture.” The society is a professional organization 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 accomplishment. 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.

Kazuo Yamazaki, a professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering, has received the Frederick W. Taylor Research Medal from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. The medal — which recognizes significant published research leading to a better understanding of factors involved in improving manufacturing processes — was awarded to Yamazaki for his body of research and development.

Marie Burns, associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Science and a member of the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, is the 2009 recipient of the Cogan Award. Bestowed by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the award recognizes a researcher 40 years old or younger who has made contributions to research in ophthalmology or visual science that are directly related to disorders of the human eye or visual system, and who shows substantial promise for future research.

Nathan Kuppermann, a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine, has been awarded the Miller-Sarkin Mentoring Award by the Academic Pediatric Association. The award was presented earlier this month during the Pediatric Academic Societies’ annual meeting in Baltimore.