UC Davis News: Teaching

Talk: Mars Curiosity lead engineer returns to UC Davis

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:34:00 -0700

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab lead engineer Adam Steltzner, who became a highly visible presence during last year's Mars Curiosity Rover mission, will give a presentation at 4 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, in UC Davis' 1065 Kemper Hall. His talk is titled: "The Right Kind of Crazy: Risk, Reason and Engineering Curiosity to the Surface of Mars." Admission is free.

A graduate of UC Davis, Steltzner led the innovative Entry, Descent and Landing team that guided Curiosity to its successful touchdown inside Mars' massive Gale Crater on Aug. 5.

Steltzner and his team — at one point, almost 2,000 people — devised the rocket-powered "sky crane," which hovered over the planet's surface and gently lowered Curiosity on a cable.

Steltzner discusses the development of this unique landing system in NASA's "Seven Minutes of Terror," a short video that has become a YouTube sensation, with more than 2 million views. See: http://youtu.be/Ki_Af_o9Q9s.

Despite the acclaim that has followed his work on Curiosity, Steltzner almost didn't find his scientific muse: After a lackluster high school career, he wanted only to play bass and drums in various New Wave bands.

But one night in 1984, entranced by the constellation Orion while returning home from a gig, he embraced higher education with fresh enthusiasm. He earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at UC Davis in 1990, and followed that with a master's degree in applied mechanics from the California Institute of Technology and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin.

His early projects with JPL's Spacecraft Structures and Dynamics Group included the Galileo and Cassini space probes, Mars Pathfinder and the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity.

For additional information, call (530) 754-9666 or visit http://engineering.ucdavis.edu.

UC Davis ranks No. 1 in the world for agricultural teaching and research

Wed, 08 May 2013 08:30:00 -0700

The University of California, Davis, is No. 1 in the world for teaching and research in the area of agriculture and forestry, according to rankings released today by QS World University Rankings.

This is the first year that the organization — which provides annual rankings in 29 other subject areas — has produced rankings in agriculture and forestry.

UC Davis this year also placed 12th in environmental sciences and 25th in biological sciences in the worldwide university ranking. Both of these subject-area rankings reflect significant advances from 2012, when UC Davis ranked 39th in biological sciences and below the top 50 institutions in environmental sciences.

“We are thrilled and excited by this evaluation, and it is gratifying to see that the ranking data validate the breadth and depth of our agricultural programs, which represent a variety of disciplines,” said Mary Delany, interim dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

“At the institutional level, this ranking signifies rich teaching and research programs that developed and were built during our more than 100 years of service,” she said. “And at the personal level, it reflects the devotion of more than 300 faculty members who are passionate about their fundamental, translational and applied research, and thoroughly devoted to training the next generation of scientists and agriculturalists.”

The college was founded in 1905 as the University of California’s University Farm. Today, it has more than 5,800 undergraduate students in 27 majors and more than 1,000 graduate students in 45 graduate groups and programs. More than 3,000 acres of UC Davis’ 5,000-acre campus are devoted to agricultural research.

Its programs have characteristically received top-tier rankings from the Chronicle of Higher Education, U.S. News and World Report and ISI Essential Science Indicators.

UC Davis, overall, ranked eighth among public research universities nationwide in the U.S. News & World Reports’ 2013 America’s Best Colleges rankings.

The QS World University Rankings by Subject are prepared by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a British firm that previously was the data provider for the annual Times Higher Education rankings. The firm is widely considered to be one of the most influential international university rankings providers. This is the third year it has produced its own world university rankings, independent of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

For this third edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject, the firm evaluated 2,858 universities and ranked 678 of those institutions in 30 subject areas.

Previously, it used three measures to rank universities within subject areas: the number of times research publications from the institution were cited by other researchers in professional journals, opinions of other academics in the field and opinions of employers in the field.

This year, the organization added a fourth ranking measure — the H-index — which measures the number of research papers published as well as the number of times those papers have been cited by other researchers, thus rewarding both the quantity and quality of research.

'Dinner with a Scientist' helps students choose their futures

Thu, 02 May 2013 15:11:00 -0700

Junior high and high school students and their teachers from throughout the Sacramento region will gather tonight for dinner and inspiration for future careers at a “Dinner with a Scientist” event at the Twin Rivers Unified School District offices in North Highlands.

The keynote speaker will be immunologist James Hildreth, dean of the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences, who will discuss his journey to becoming a scientist.

That journey started at Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in chemistry in 1979. He then went to Oxford University in England as a Rhodes scholar, where he earned a doctorate in immunology in 1982. In 1987, he earned a medical degree at Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Before joining UC Davis in 2011, Hildreth served as chief of the Division of Research for the National Institutes of Health’s National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities. He also directed the Center for AIDS Health Disparities Research at Meharry Medical College in Tennessee, where he was a professor of medicine.

Dinner with a Scientist, now in its second year, brings about 180 students and teachers together for a science knowledge game, dinner and dessert with about 20 scientists from UC Davis, Sacramento State, state agencies and private industry. The goal is to increase young people’s interest in study and careers in science, technology, engineering and math, commonly known as “STEM” subjects.

“Our plan for the first Dinner with a Scientist event was to start small,” said Arthur Beauchamp, director of the Sacramento Area Science Project. The project is a collaboration between the UC Davis School of Education and Sacramento State, working with Sacramento’s Powerhouse Science Center.

“We were pleasantly amazed when the first event last year exceeded capacity,” Beauchamp said. “The response has been tremendous. Students are eager to talk with scientists, and scientists and engineers are willing to convey their enthusiasm to students.”

Tonight’s event is the third Dinner with a Scientist. In all, more than 260 middle and high school students from nearly 50 area schools and 40 practicing scientists have attended one of the dinners with their teachers. School districts including Sacramento City, Natomas, Elk Grove, Twin Rivers, Folsom-Cordova, Vacaville, Washington, Camptonville and others will be represented at the event.

Nancy Pelosi to deliver commencement address at UC Davis School of Law

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:16:00 -0700

Nancy Pelosi, Democratic leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, will deliver the commencement address for the 2013 graduating class of the University of California, Davis, School of Law.

Pelosi will speak to a gathering of law degree candidates, faculty, guests, administrators and UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi at the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts on the UC Davis campus on Friday, May 17, at 4 p.m.

From 2007 to 2011, Pelosi served as speaker of the House, the only woman in American history to do so. She first made history in November 2002 when House Democrats elected her the first woman to lead a major political party in Congress. Pelosi has led House Democrats for a decade and previously served as House Democratic whip. Pelosi is focused on strengthening America's middle class through job creation, reforming the political system to create clean campaigns and fair elections, enacting comprehensive immigration reform, and ensuring safety in America’s communities, neighborhoods and schools.

“I am delighted that Leader Pelosi has agreed to give the commencement address,” said Kevin R. Johnson, dean of UC Davis School of Law. “Our graduates will benefit greatly from hearing her perspective as a groundbreaking leader on the national stage. I want to thank Leader Pelosi for addressing the 45th graduating class at UC Davis School of Law as our graduates prepare to launch their legal careers. I know she will deliver a powerful and inspiring message.”

Previous commencement speakers at UC Davis School of Law include California Gov. Jerry Brown, former CIA Director and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, former U.N. Ambassador and Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, Chief Justice of California Tani Cantil-Sakauye ’84, California Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg ’84, and civil rights leader Coretta Scott King — the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., for whom the law school building is named.

About UC Davis School of Law

UC Davis School of Law welcomed its first entering class in 1966. Today, the School of Law — housed in Martin Luther King, Jr. Hall on the UC Davis campus — ranks among the country’s leading law schools, known for its outstanding ranking, small size, and dedicated faculty of internationally-renowned scholars. The law school’s mission is to be a nationally and internationally recognized leader in the development and dissemination of legal knowledge, as well as the training of students to become socially responsible lawyers committed to professional excellence and high ethical standards. Please visit http://www.law.ucdavis.edu to learn more about the excellent record of scholarship, teaching, and service at UC Davis School of Law.

Geophysicist, historian elected to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 10:40:00 -0700

Two University of California, Davis, professors, a geophysicist who works with virtual reality and a historian of women in China, are among the new members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences announced today, April 24. They are Louise Kellogg, professor of geology and Susan Mann, professor emerita of history.

"I'm delighted to welcome Professors Kellogg and Mann to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences," said UC Davis Chancellor Linda P. B. Katehi, who was herself elected to membership in 2011. "It's a fitting recognition of the great contributions they have made, and continue to make, to science, education and scholarship."

"Election to the academy honors individual accomplishment and calls upon members to serve the public good," said Academy President Leslie C. Berlowitz, announcing the new slate of members. "We look forward to drawing on the knowledge and expertise of these distinguished men and women to advance solutions to the pressing policy challenges of the day."

Kellogg studies how the slow movement of rock deep in the Earth's interior drives the movement of tectonic plates, building mountains as well as causing earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

She is director of the W. M. Keck Center for Active Visualization in Earth Sciences or KeckCAVES, which uses an immersive, three-dimensional "virtual reality" environment to explore large sets of data. Researchers have used the facility for everything from exploring groundwater pathways and earthquake faults to visiting the bottom of Lake Tahoe and the landscape of Mars.

The KeckCAVES has also been heavily involved in education and outreach to the public, for example working with the Tahoe Environmental Research Center to develop new data displays for visitors, and has collaborated on artistic productions.

Kellogg earned her bachelor of arts, bachelor of science, master of engineering and doctor of philosophy degrees from Cornell University. She joined UC Davis as an assistant professor of geology in 1990 and chaired the Department of Geology from 2000 to 2008. She also serves as the director of the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics at UC Davis, which is supported through the U.S. National Science Foundation.

Susan Mann is internationally known for her pioneering work on the history of women in China. She retired from the Department of History in June 2010, after nearly 30 years of teaching in the University of California system.

Mann earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a master's and doctor of philosophy degrees from Stanford University. She taught at the University of Chicago and UC Santa Cruz before joining the faculty at UC Davis in 1989. In her career at UC Davis, Mann served as chair of both the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and the Department of History.

Among her many honors, Mann in 2000 was elected president of the Association of Asian Studies, an organization of 7,000 historians, literary scholars and social scientists. She has received both the Outstanding Mentor Award from the UC Davis Consortium for Women and Research and the Faculty Research Lecturer award from the Davis Division of the Academic Senate, among many other awards.

She has published four books and numerous other publications. Mann's book "Precious Records: Women in China's Long Eighteenth Century" (1997) was awarded the Joseph R. Levenson Prize, the premier annual prize awarded in the field of pre-20th century China.

Other new members elected to the academy this year include actors Robert DeNiro and Sally Field, musicians Bruce Springsteen and Herbie Hancock, Nobel prizewinner Bruce Beutler, and astronaut and former Senator John Glenn.

With Kellogg and Mann, 24 current and emeritus UC Davis faculty have been elected to the academy including Chancellor Linda P. B. Katehi and painter Wayne Thiebaud.

The full list of the new members is located at https://www.amacad.org/members.aspx. The new class will be inducted during an Oct. 12 ceremony at the academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.

Since its founding in 1780, the academy has elected leading "thinkers and doers" from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Four win prestigious CAREER awards

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:00:00 -0700

Four young professors at the University of California, Davis, have earned prestigious Early Career Development awards, totaling $2 million, from the National Science Foundation to fund projects aimed at developing new nanomaterials, smaller medical implants, ”biological circuits” and a better understanding of timing in ecosystems.

The recipients are Ken Loh, assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Stephen O'Driscoll, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Ilias Tagkopoulos, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and the UC Davis Genome Center; and Louie Yang, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology.

NSF's Faculty Early Career Development Program supports junior faculty who perform outstanding research, are excellent educators and who integrate education and research in their work. The awards, known as CAREER awards, typically support both a five-year research program and a program of outreach and education in local schools and colleges.

Loh was awarded $400,000 over five years for his work on thin, multifunctional structural coatings made from carbon nanotubes. His laboratory is exploring how these coatings might be used as a "skin" that detects flexing or damage in other surfaces, such as wind turbine blades and aerospace structures. The new project will develop the basic knowledge and theory necessary for future applications of carbon nanotube coatings.

Loh earned his bachelor’s degree at Johns Hopkins University in 2004 and then went on to the University of Michigan, where he earned two master’s degrees, in civil engineering and in materials science and engineering, as well as a Ph.D. in civil engineering. He joined the faculty at UC Davis in 2008.

O'Driscoll will receive $400,000 over five years for research on bio-adaptive wireless power delivery and signal acquisition electronics for implantable medical devices. O’Driscoll researches analog, radio frequency and mixed-signal integrated circuit design, wireless power transfer, and medical electronics. He will investigate ways to estimate the location of implanted devices and direct wireless power to them from outside the body. He also plans new ultra-low power circuits that would allow for smaller and more deeply implanted devices, for example to deliver drugs with precision or to record neural activity at the scale necessary to control prosthetic devices.

O'Driscoll obtained his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from University College Cork, Ireland, in 2001. He earned both his M.S. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 2003 and 2009, respectively. O'Driscoll worked as an analog integrated circuit designer at Cypress Semiconductor from 2001 to 2003 and has been a visiting research scientist at Google since 2012. He joined the faculty at UC Davis in 2009.

Trained as an electrical engineer, Tagkopoulos became interested in applying principles from circuit design and computer science to biology. He uses a variety of approaches to address questions in evolution, systems and synthetic biology. His award of $600,000 will fund research on an integrative framework for designing robust and reliable "biological circuits" that aim to engineer living cells to carry out specific tasks and functions.

Tagkopoulos earned a diploma in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Patras, Greece in 2001, a M.Sc. in microelectronics from Columbia University in 2003, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton University in 2008. He joined the faculty at UC Davis in 2009.

Yang will study the importance of timing in interactions between plants, animals and their environment, specifically studying the monarch butterfly and milkweed. Species interactions change with the seasons and with different life stages, and climate change may disrupt these interactions, for example if caterpillars emerge before food sources are available. Yang’s $600,000 award will support work that will provide new knowledge about how natural communities respond to such changes.

Yang earned his bachelor's degree from Cornell University in 1999 and his Ph.D. from UC Davis in 2006. He conducted postdoctoral research at UC Santa Barbara before returning to UC Davis as a faculty member in 2009.

Including these latest awards, current UC Davis faculty members have held a total of 63 NSF CAREER awards.

Rock to Renaissance musicologist gets teaching prize

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 10:15:00 -0800

Peek inside the office of Christopher Reynolds, UC Davis professor, musicologist, choral singer and son of a choir conductor, and a visitor sees the expected — rows and rows of books, stacks of sheet music and a sketch of Beethoven on the wall.

But take a few more steps inside and you bump into a life-size cardboard cutout of Elvis clad in a shimmering gold suit, a gift from a co-worker. To talk to Reynolds for a few minutes is to learn his favorite musician of all time is the late, great guitarist Jimi Hendrix, with the band Led Zeppelin coming in a close second. “I could do a whole quarter on Zeppelin,” said the professor, who has taught at the University of California, Davis, since 1985.

In fact, he plans to teach “a whole quarter” next year on a different British import — the Beatles.

His teaching abilities, punctuated with enthusiasm for all his subject matter — a vast breadth of music from Renaissance to rock — were recognized today when UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi interrupted Reynolds’ “History of Rock Music” class to announce that he is the recipient of the 2013 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement.

Established in 1986, the prize was created to honor faculty who are both exceptional teachers and scholars. The $45,000 prize is believed to be the largest of its kind in the country and is funded through philanthropic gifts managed by the UC Davis Foundation. The winner is selected based on the nominations of other professors, research peers, representatives from the UC Davis Foundation Board of Trustees, and students.

With the professor’s students, family members and UC Davis officials looking on, Katehi surprised him with a cake shaped in the distinctive curves of the Fender Stratocaster guitar that Hendrix so famously set on fire and then smashed at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. For today’s purposes, the flames were edible.

“He has a gift for connecting with his students by encouraging them to find their own approach to the material discussed in class and inspiring them to think critically about music,” said Katehi, in presenting the award in an announcement to his class.

UC Davis Foundation Board Chair Bruce Edwards said Reynolds' work is inspiring. “It's exciting to celebrate someone as talented and inspiring as Professor Reynolds. His talent and dedication to UC Davis bring great joy and pride to the university, and we are proud to have him as a member of the Aggie Family." The foundation will sponsor an event on May 9 to celebrate the award.

“I am incredibly grateful to the donors at the UC Davis Foundation who established this prize,” said Reynolds. “This is an amazing and humbling honor that they give. And I'm grateful as well to all of my students and wonderful colleagues who have been so generous in their praise. It's a real privilege to work with the students I've taught here, and I'm blessed to have such great colleagues.”

For his part, Reynolds said he was shocked, but thrilled, to hear of the award when Katehi told him. But to those who have taken a class from him, it’s no surprise at all.

“I am in awe of him,” said Calvin Lymos, who directed the UC Davis Gospel Choir and earned his bachelor’s degree in music from UC Davis in 1993. Lymos, who now directs a gospel choir at the 24th Street Baptist Church in Sacramento, said he was always impressed with the breadth of Reynolds’ music interests and knowledge: “He is versatile. He is open to what music has to give; open to what the earth has to offer.”

In their evaluations, students praise his lectures, his knowledge of history, and mostly write that he is “awesome.” Wrote one student about the rock history class — which Reynolds has taught since the 1990s — “Thanks for teaching this class.”

Reynolds does not mind, and actually embraces, that courses in rock once never got approved. In the not too distant past, most university music coursework stuck to “serious” music. “That means German music,” he quipped — although German music is a subject in which he also excels.

In a letter recommending Reynolds for the teaching prize, Department of Music Chairman Henry Spiller wrote that Reynolds’ teaching of the rock class had been met with skepticism by some faculty — skepticism that seems “quaint” now. But, Spiller said, it precipitated an important paradigm shift for the Department of Music and for the university as a whole. “We make more of an impact on students’ lives by showing them how to apply the methods of humanistic inquiry to the subjects that they find compelling than we do trying to dictate which subjects they should appreciate,” said Spiller. “…This paradigm shift stands as perhaps his most important achievement.”

It is a different teaching experience to teach rock and roll to 150 students, most of them nonmusicians, than to teach Beethoven, Reynolds explained. “When I’m teaching Beethoven, I’m the expert. It’s new to them. In rock and roll, every group of students that I teach is going to have some knowledge of what I’m teaching. I’m teaching fans, some of them really knowledgeable fans.”

He resists being an uncritical fan himself, but knows what he appreciates. “One of the things I look for is someone who has a variety. I find Jimi Hendrix particularly amazing,” Reynolds explained, describing how the late rocker wrote and performed in a variety of styles. “But he doesn’t let his virtuosity get in the way of the music.”

Reynolds is known to his students and fellow faculty to be at once a very warm and kind person, while at the same time being a rigorous instructor.

Laurie A. San Martin, an associate professor of music at UC Davis who long ago was also Reynolds’ student, said this combination impressed and inspired her.

“I remember rather vividly actually, that he would show these beautiful slides of Europe — the churches and courts where Renaissance music was performed, towns, and people too.”

“They were often his personal pictures from travels. As a teacher myself now, I look to this example — living and enjoying the experience to help tell the stories from history. His love of the subject always came across and it was also always obvious that he is and was a very good person to his core.”

Music and teaching as life

Teaching is a family tradition. Reynolds’ father taught music at UC Riverside, where he also conducted the two choirs. His great-granduncle taught classics for half a century at UC Berkeley. One of his sisters and a brother-in-law also are music professors in New York. His wife, Alessa Johns, teaches English at UC Davis. They grew up together in Riverside, and their families were close.

Exposed to a lot of music while growing up, he thought the one thing he should not be is a music professor, since that is what his father did. He studied philosophy, but took music courses, too, at UC Riverside. When it was time to declare a major, he discovered he had taken many more music courses than philosophy courses, so ultimately declared music as his major. He went to Princeton for graduate school, but told his friends he might come back home in a year. But the siren’s song of music drew him in still, and he eventually earned his doctorate in musicology.

As a musicologist, he enjoys teaching about the meanings of music and the ways that composers influenced each other, rather than focusing on dates and biographical facts. He sings (bass or baritone) and plays piano — musicianship not necessarily expected or required of a musicologist. He, his wife and son, Gabriel, all sing at the Episcopal Church of St. Martin in Davis, a choir that he also has conducted for many years.

Music as scholarship

Reynolds devotes about 30 minutes a day to acquiring on eBay and elsewhere sheet music written by women composers. He has collected about 5,000 pieces, of which 3,000 have been donated to the UC Davis Shields Library as the Christopher A. Reynolds Collection of Women’s Song. The collection is a testament to the activity of women composers in a field considered dominated by men, said Jessie Ann Owens, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, in the College of Letters and Science. A musicologist herself and Princeton classmate of Reynolds, she said in her letter nominating him for the teaching prize that his commitment to this work is both scholarly and ethical.

“Professor Reynolds’ work lays the groundwork for further consideration, by students as well as scholars, of the role of women in American music,” Owens said.

Reynolds is the author of two books: “Papal Patronage and the Music of St. Peter’s, 1380-1513” (UC Press, 1995), and “Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century Music” (Harvard, 2003) and numerous award-winning articles. He is currently writing a book on Wagner and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and is founding editor of the journal, Beethoven Studies. He is the president of the American Musicological Society, one of many prestigious posts he has held during his career.

He has studied and taught 19th century German music, and lived so many years in Germany in the course of both his research and as director of the UC Study Center in Germany, that his son, Gabriel, now 15, once was identified as an English-as-a-second language student while entering school in the United States.

“We laughed at that. We spoke English at home, but apparently he had a little bit of an accent.” His son, who speaks English and German today, due to frequent family trips to Germany to keep up his language, plays guitar and viola.

Reynolds, a firm believer in students going abroad for their education, said the 15 years of his life spent outside the United States have been among his most rewarding years. But, every day is rewarding.

“I sometimes just look around and say, ‘This is so much fun. I can’t believe I get paid to do this.’”

About the UC Davis Foundation

The UC Davis Foundation is a nonprofit organization that plays an essential role in sustaining and enhancing the excellence of UC Davis by highlighting the impacts of philanthropy and stewarding private donations to the university. It is governed by a distinguished volunteer Board of Trustees. Its mission is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for UC Davis. Established in 1959, the UC Davis Foundation has a rich history of stewarding private contributions that advance the university’s mission. Gifts made through the foundation leverage the core funding the university receives from the state of California, enhancing UC Davis’ ability to teach, discover and serve the public in ways that shape the future of our world.

The UC Davis Foundation Board of Trustees plays an integral role in leading The Campaign for UC Davis, the university’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign that seeks to raise $1 billion from 100,000 donors by 2014.

Statistician gets top Australian honor

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:25:00 -0800

Peter Hall, distinguished professor of statistics at UC Davis, has been named an officer of the Order of the Australia for his distinguished contributions to the field of statistics worldwide. The honor is among the highest awarded by the Australian government.

"It's unexpected, and it's very nice to have the recognition, especially for the statistical community in Australia," Hall said of the Jan. 26 announcement.

Hall is a professor at the University of Melbourne and, since 2006, has held a 25 percent appointment at the UC Davis Department of Statistics. He spends one quarter a year, typically spring quarter, in Davis and teaches a proportional full load over a two-year cycle.

Hans-Georg Müller, chair of the department, said that Hall's work had provided the theoretical support for major new methods in statistics, especially non-parametric statistics and bootstrap analysis. Hall has received numerous honors in recognition of his work and is listed as the top-ranked author in the entire field of statistics by Microsoft Academic Search.

Many are familiar with statistical data that falls into a "bell curve" with a peak in the middle and tails at both ends, and data that look like that can be analyzed with conventional, or parametric statistics. But you cannot always assume that data fall into such a simple pattern. From clinical drug trials to DNA sequencing to astronomical surveys, scientists are generating huge amounts of large and complex data.

To analyze such data, non-parametric statistics, including bootstrap analysis and other methods that require few assumptions and typically involve a lot of computation, are often attractive options, Müller said. They are well suited to studying very large and high-dimensional sets of data, such as gene expression patterns, financial markets and Internet search results.

Bootstrap analysis, for example, involves repeatedly sampling the original sample to arrive at statistical conclusions. It came into use in the 1970s and allows scientists to analyze a set of data without having to make many assumptions about it.

"Bootstrap was a major breakthrough in statistics," Müller said. Hall wrote a classic book on the method, published in 1992, and teaches bootstrap analysis in his Davis courses.

Data used to be collected by humans with clipboards. Now a lot of data collection is done by machines, creating very large sample sizes where each subject may have many different variables associated with it, Hall said.

"The sheer volume of data is an issue," he said.

After completing his bachelor's degree at the University of Sydney, Hall received his doctorate, or D. Phil., from Oxford University in 1976. He first worked at the University of Melbourne and then, from 1978 to 2006, at the Australian National University in Canberra. In 2006, he moved back to Melbourne, and also took up the fractional appointment at UC Davis in the 2005-06 academic year.

"I have considered moving to the U.S., but I find it hard to leave Australia," Hall said. He first visited Davis in 1988, and collaborated over several years with Müller and Professor Jane-Ling Wang before being offered the fractional appointment.

"I have to say I'm very grateful to UC Davis for their flexibility, it has worked very well for me," Hall said.

"Davis has a lot going for it," Hall said. "The department is very strong, with good relationships among the people. I like Davis and the Californian outlook. The climate is good, and in Davis I don't need a car to get around."

The citation also noted Hall's leadership of advisory boards and international organizations. He is a past president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and of the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability, and is currently chairing a national review of the mathematical sciences in Australia.

The Order of Australia was instituted in 1975, replacing the British system of awards and honors.

Engineering dean elected to National Academy

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:49:00 -0800

Enrique Lavernia, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Davis, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the highest professional distinction for an engineer. Lavernia was elected for "contributions to novel processing of metals and alloys, and for leadership in engineering education."

"This is a wonderful recognition of Enrique Lavernia's outstanding work, as a scientist, an educator, a leader in the engineering profession and as dean of the College of Engineering," said UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, who is also a professor of electrical engineering and a member of the academy.

Lavernia is the 13th current or retired member of the UC Davis faculty to be elected to the prestigious academy. It is one of four organizations that make up the National Academies of the U.S., established by Congress to advise the nation on a wide range of scientific issues.

"I am truly honored and humbled by this recognition," said Lavernia. "This is a tremendous acknowledgment of the research achievement, teaching excellence and public service accomplishments of UC Davis and our College of Engineering.

"I couldn't have accomplished so much without the tremendous efforts of my graduate students, postdoctoral scientists, research assistants, staff and academic colleagues. I have also been very fortunate to have outstanding support from the leadership of UC Davis, which has been critical to the growth of our college."

Lavernia also holds the position of Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. His research interests are principally in processes to make nanomaterials, which are materials made up of very small particles whose size gives them unusual properties. He has published 500 journal and 200 conference publications on topics ranging from nanomaterials to extremely strong aluminum alloys.

During Lavernia's tenure as dean, the College of Engineering has seen its research expenditures grow from $37.3 million in 2001-02 to more than $87.1 million in 2011-12. During that same time, undergraduate enrollment has increased from 3,317 to 3,852 while graduate student enrollment has grown from 768 to 1,252. Lavernia has also demonstrated a significant commitment to faculty, staff and student diversity, resulting in the College of Engineering ranking sixth (of 309) in the U.S. for percentage of female faculty.

Under Lavernia's leadership, the College of Engineering has been extensively engaged in outreach to schools, including the efforts of the Center for Computing and STEM Education led by Professor Harry Cheng, and the Renewable Energy Systems Opportunity for Unified Research Collaboration and Education program led by Professor Jean VanderGheynst.

Lavernia earned his B.S. with honors in solid mechanics from Brown University in 1982, his M.S. in metallurgy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984, and his Ph.D. in materials engineering from MIT in 1986.

Lavernia took up the position of dean of the UC Davis College of Engineering in 2002, after serving at UC Irvine as chair and Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. He served as provost and executive vice chancellor of UC Davis from January 2009 to December 2010.

Among other honors, Lavernia is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASM International, Materials Research Society and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Earlier in his career, he was named as a Presidential Young Investigator by the National Science Foundation and also received a Young Investigator Award from the Office of Naval Research.

In 2011 he received the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Award and the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science Distinguished Scientist Award. Lavernia is also the recipient of the 2013 Edward DeMille Campbell Memorial Lectureship, and the 2013 ASM International Gold Medal Award. He was named the 1998 Biochemical and Biochemical Engineering Materials Science “Science Teacher of the Year" at UC Irvine.

Chancellor Katehi honored among 'Women of STEM'

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 11:35:00 -0700

University of California, Davis, Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi is among a dozen “Leading Women in STEM” to be honored today at the 2012 California STEM Summit in San Diego.

The awards recognize honorees for their achievements in advancing innovative and effective STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education initiatives across the state, and for being exemplary role models for California women and girls.

Katehi is an electrical engineer by training, with 19 U.S. patents in her name. At UC Davis, she holds joint appointments in the departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Women and Gender Studies. She has been a member of numerous national boards and advisory committees on science, engineering and education, including serving as chair of the National Academy of Engineering's Committee on K-12 Engineering education from 2007 to 2009.

Since her early years as a faculty member, Katehi has focused on expanding research opportunities for undergraduates and improving the education and professional experience of graduate students, especially from underrepresented groups. She has mentored more than 70 postdoctoral fellows, doctoral and master’s students in electrical and computer engineering.

This fall Katehi was awarded a grant of nearly $4 million by the National Science Foundation for a program aimed at increasing the participation of women, especially Latinas, in academic STEM careers.

"For our economy to thrive in the future, we need more young women, as well as young men, to have opportunities to study science, engineering and mathematics and pursue careers in these areas," Katehi said. "The California STEM Learning Network is a leader in advancing STEM education, and I am honored to receive this award."

The California STEM Summit brings together business, government, education, nonprofit and philanthropic luminaries to spark change in STEM education and workforce development, as well as to launch new STEM education initiatives.

Recognizing the dramatic need for increased numbers of women in STEM fields — only 25 percent of STEM jobs in the United States today are held by women — the California STEM Learning Network is highlighting accomplished women STEM leaders and supporting initiatives across California to bolster STEM education for female students, noting that women with STEM jobs earn 33 percent more than comparable women in non-STEM jobs.

“The California STEM Learning Network is proud to honor these highly accomplished education, industry, nonprofit and civic leaders for their innovative and successful efforts to create world-class STEM education across California,” said Chris Roe, California STEM Learning Network CEO. “Their leadership will ensure that our next generation of leaders is truly reflective of the great diversity and talent that we have in our state.”

The honorees, in addition to Katehi, are: Joan Bissell, California State University Chancellor’s Office; Sandra Birmingham, CSU Channel Islands; Rachel Bondi, Creative Artists Agency; Assemblymember Susan Bonilla (CA-11); Pamela Clute, UC Riverside; Judy D’Amico, Project Lead the Way; Dawn Garrett, Raytheon; Susan Hackwood, California Council on Science and Technology; Helen Quinn, Stanford University; Carol Tang, Coalition for Science After School; and Nancy Taylor, San Diego Science Alliance.

About the California STEM Learning Network (CSLNet)

The California STEM Learning Network is working to bring systemic change to how STEM is taught and learned in the state in order to prepare the nation’s most STEM-capable graduates. Established as a nonprofit in 2010, CSLNet brings together stakeholders from K-12, higher education, business and industry, governmental agencies, community-based organizations and philanthropies. Through this cross-sector collaboration, the network fosters innovation and helps to scale and sustain effective STEM teaching and learning in and out of school for all students.

Grants to study robotics as teaching tool in schools

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Two new grants totaling $1.25 million awarded to the University of California, Davis, by the National Science Foundation will support studies of the impact of robotics in teaching science, technology, engineering and math from elementary to high school.

Both projects are led by Harry Cheng, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and director of the UC Davis K-14 Outreach Center for Computing and STEM Education.

"Robotics involves a variety of math, information technology, and engineering concepts," Cheng said. "Introducing computing and robotics into the math and science curriculum helps make abstract ideas concrete and allows students to apply mathematical concepts to real world problems."

The C-STEM Center also will hold a Fall Robotics Academy for school teachers on the weekend on Oct. 13-14. The class will train teachers to use robots and computing in their classrooms.

"These recent NSF awards to the UC Davis C-STEM Center are a tremendous validation of the incredible work being done by Harry Cheng and his colleagues," said Enrique Lavernia, dean of the College of Engineering. "It's critical that we develop creative and innovative approaches to K-12 instruction, to assure the successful realization of every student's potential. Professor Cheng has confronted the challenge of math engagement with middle school and high school students with an innovative approach using the latest in computing and robotics technology."

The larger grant, from NSF's National Robotics Initiative, provides $950,000 over three years to study how the use of robotics programs in schools can change kids' attitudes to science, technology, engineering and math subjects. Co-investigators on the grant are Professor Jean Vandergheynst, associate dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Engineering and co-director of the C-STEM center; and Tobin White, associate professor in the UC Davis School of Education.

The project will recruit teachers from Sacramento area schools from grades six and up and provide them with robots, teaching resources and training in how to integrate computing and robotics in their teaching with engaging, fun activities for real-world problem solving.

Their students will be able to enter the RoboPlay Competitions run by the C-STEM Center. RoboPlay is designed to let K-12 students use robots while exploring their creativity in writing, art, music, choreography, design, and filmmaking and at the same time seamlessly learn and apply computing and STEM concepts to solve practical problems.

A second recent grant, of $300,000 over two years from the NSF's Cyberlearning: Transforming Education program, will fund a study of how robots and handheld computers can be used specifically in teaching algebra. That study will involve two schools in Washington Unified School District in West Sacramento.

The UC Davis robotics curriculum helps students excel, Cheng said — especially students who do not typically do well in middle-school math and related subjects.

Together with another grant received in June 2011, the center has now received a total of three NSF grants totaling almost $1.8 million in the past 18 months to support its educational outreach work.

In addition to the Fall Academy, the center also organizes an annual two-week Summer Institute for teachers and a weekend Winter Academy in January. The marquee event is the annual UC Davis C-STEM Day, held this year in May, which combines a conference and workshop on computing and STEM education with robotics competitions for students.

Media availability: Astronaut turned professor Steve Robinson

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Former astronaut Steve Robinson will be available for one-on-one interviews as he begins his new career as a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Davis. Fall quarter begins Sept. 24.