Pete Siegel, the chief information officer and vice provost for Information and Educational Technology at UC Davis, has been elected to the new Research Advisory Council of Internet2, a U.S. advanced networking consortium that focuses on education and research.

Internet2 recently created four new 15-member advisory councils to offer strategic guidance, help set priorities for the organization, and ensure that the nonprofit meets the needs of researchers and educators. The council Siegel joined will work with application scientists and engineers to identify the effective role of national, regional and local networking infrastructure for their research.

Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, professor emerita of anthropology, is one of four recipients of Harvard University's 2007 Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences awards the medals, the school's highest honor, each June to alumni selected for their contributions to society as they have emerged from graduate education at Harvard. Hrdy, who earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1968 and doctorate in anthropology in 1975 from Harvard, is a former Guggenheim fellow and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the California Academy of Sciences.

C.-Y. Cynthia Lin, assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics at UC Davis and a research associate at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, has been appointed to the California State Controller's Council of Economic Advisors. As one of seven economists on the newly created council, Lin will advise state controller John Chiang on emerging strengths and vulnerabilities in California's economy, major issues and trends that may affect the state's fiscal health.

Mark Francis, professor of landscape architecture and environmental design, has been elected chair of the jury for the International Design Competition for Sejong, a new administrative city planned for a rural area in South Korea. Planners expect to move the Korean prime minister's office and much of the national government to the city by 2012. The city will include a series of urban villages clustered around a large park, twice the size of New York City's Central Park.

Brad Barber, professor in the Graduate School of Management and director of the UC Davis Center for Investor Welfare and Corporate Responsibility, received the Moskowitz Prize for Socially Responsible Investing for his paper, "Monitoring the Monitor: Evaluating CalPERS' Shareholder Activism." Barber showed that CalPERS activism created $3.1 billion in the short term, and up to $89.5 billion in the long term. The prize is awarded by the Center for Responsible Business at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Benjamin Houlton, assistant professor of terrestrial biogeochemistrry, won the best published paper award in the biogeosciences written by a junior scientist in 2006. This recognition by the Ecological Society of America will be announced at the society's meeting in San Jose this month. The paper was titled "Isotopic evidence for large gaseous nitrogen losses from tropical rainforests."

Ted Hsiao, professor emeritus of hydrologic science, was selected to receive the 2007 American Society of Agronomy's honorary membership award. The special award is a career award, recognizing Hsiao's accomplishments on plant physiological response to environmental stresses.

Mel George, crop and ecosystems specialist in Cooperative Extension, has been selected as the recipient of the 2007 James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award. The Meyer Award is one of the most prestigious awards granted by the Academic Federation at the Davis campus. A public dinner reception will be held honoring George on Nov. 1.

Jorge Dubcovsky, professor in the plant sciences, will receive the USDA's third annual National Research Initiative's Discovery Award for his research on wheat applied genomics. Only one award per year is made. The award recognizes outstanding researchers in agriculture who have worked on NRI-funded projects. A USDA delegation will visit the campus in the fall to present Dubcovsky with the award.