Honors and Awards

Four researchers with the UC Davis Department of Nutrition are being recognized for their contributions to advancing nutrition science and health.

Dr. Dewy has been awarded the 2024-2025 UCD Emeriti/Emeritae Association’s Distinguished Emerita Award. This annual award honors outstanding scholarly work and/or University or professional service performed by a UC Davis Senate emeritus or emerita since their retirement.

Professor Fawaz Haj with the Department of Nutrition is set to moderate a panel on precision medicine for chronic metabolic diseases this week as part of a workshop series highlighting the innovative research between the U.S. and Kuwait. 

Kudos to Professor Haj on being part of these important discussions about the advancements in precision medicine! The event is Feb. 2-3 in Kuwait, details here: https://lnkd.in/gDWyqp-V

Joan Frank MS, RDN, FAND has been honored with the 2025 Outstanding Dietetics Educator Award for the Western US region by the Nutrition and Dietetic Educators and Preceptors practice group of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND). This award recognizes the teaching, mentoring and leadership activities of faculty in ACEND-accredited dietetics education programs. One educator is selected from each of five program types within each geographic region. Award winners will be recognized at the annual meeting of dietetics educators in March 2025.

PARIS – Since taking the role of Director of Performance Nutrition within UC Davis Athletics, Rachael Mack has been committed to providing expert input while building meaningful and trusting connections with UC Davis student athletes.

Mack's ability to excel and be an asset for the Aggies comes partly from her time spent as a former lacrosse student athlete and Aggie alumni. It also comes from her time with USA Men's Water Polo, and just this past summer Mack spent her second summer Olympics with the team helping them take home a bronze medal.

Dr. Lauren Au’s Community Nutrition class is centered around a research project to improve the health and well-being of the UC Davis campus community. Seniors spend their quarter developing useful skills, such as creating a research question, collecting and analyzing data, and translating their findings into recommendations during a poster presentation. Top presentations are selected by their peers and teaching team. This year, a special award was dedicated to Dr. Elizabeth Prado, who was the former co-instructor of this course and recently passed away in 2023.

For the full article, please see the post at the Global Learning website, posted January 17, 2024.

Elise Reynolds is one of eight UC Davis students and alums who were awarded prestigious Fulbright grants by the Fulbright U.S. Program.

Full article on the Allen Institute news post.

The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation Awards $10.5 Million to new Allen Distinguished Investigators. Research funding will support four projects focused on extracellular vesicles and three on sex hormones.

Dr. Lauren Au is one of 10 recipients of the 2023 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Healthy Eating Research Grants. Her project aims to determine whether length of participation in Medicaid, SNAP, and WIC is associated with diet quality and weight status at 2-5 years, and whether there is a synergistic benefit of safety net program participation on diet quality and health.

Thank you to all of the GradSAC members who worked tirelessly in planning and executing the 10th annual GGNB Research Symposium on Friday; and thanks to all of the presenters, judges, and all of those in attendance at Walker Hall. It was fabulous to have such a large number of student and faculty attendees – we are fairly certain we may have had record attendance/participation!

It was an excellent primer to the active research in the graduate group and dedication of our graduate students that will continue in the coming academic year(s).