National & International Faculty Honors

UC Davis is home to globally renowned academic visionaries in the arts and education, in law and letters, in engineering and technology transfer, and in the physical and life sciences, assuring its place as one of the top public universities in the country. Click through the categories on the left to view a sampling of the many premier honors received for research and teaching, community engagement, and service to the professions. For more faculty distinctions by discipline and related stories, visit the colleges and schools linked here.

AAAS 2020
AAAS announced the election of 498 new Fellows to the Class of 2020, including 11 outstanding members of the UC Davis Faculty: Jonathan Eisen (CBS), Valerie Eviner (CAES), Stacey Harmer (CBS), Tessa Hill (L&S), Mark Huising (CBS), Daniel Kliebenstein (CAES), Laura Marcu (COE), Lisa Miller (SVM), John Owens (COE), Pablo Ross (CAES), and Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra (CBS).
John Owens
John Owens, the Child Family Professor of Engineering and Entrepreneurship and Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Pam Ronald
Pamela C. Ronald, Distinguished Professor of Plant Pathology and faculty member in the UC Davis Genome Center, has received the 2020 World Agriculture Prize of the Global Confederation of Higher Education Associations for Agricultural and Life Sciences (GCHERA).
Jennifer Curtis
Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, Dean of the College of Engineering and Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, has received the 2020 ASEE Benjamin Garver Lamme Award, and has been named a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola
Dr. Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, Director of the UC Davis Center for Reducing Health Disparities and Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine in the School of Medicine, is recipient of the 2021 Ohtli Award, the Mexican Government’s highest recognition.
Lorena Oropeza
Lorena Oropeza, Interim Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Diversity and Professor of History, has been elected to the Fellowship of La Academia de Liderazgo.
Jay Lund
Jay Lund, Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, has received the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water, for Water Management and Protection.
Jodi Nunnari
Distinguished Professor Jodi Nunnari, chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, has been elected an associate member of the European Molecular Biology Organization.
Sharon Strauss
Sharon Strauss, professor of evolution and ecology, is the recipient of the American Society of Naturalists’ 2020 Sewall Wright Award.
Joanne Emerson
Joanne Emerson, assistant professor of plant pathology, has received an Early Career Research Program grant from the Department of Energy Office of Science.
Andrés Reséndez
Andrés Reséndez, Professor of History, has received an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Dr. Reséndez is the first faculty member at UC Davis to receive the coveted award.
Chancellor May
Chancellor Gary S. May has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Class of 2020.
Heghnar Watenpaugh
Heghnar Watenpaugh, Professor of Art, Architecture and Urban History of Middle East Cultural and Museum Studies, has been named a 2020 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow.
Michal Kurlaender
Michal Kurlaender, Professor and Department Chair at the School of Education, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Education.
Jenkins
Bryan Jenkins, Distinguished Professor and Chair of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, was named the 2020 recipient of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers James R. and Karen A. Gilley Academic Leadership Award.
David Amaral
David Amaral, the Beneto Foundation Chair in the UC Davis MIND Institute, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and faculty in the Center for Neuroscience, School of Medicine, has been elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine.