Name droppers: Romani earns slice of astronomical prize

Stanford physics Professor Roger W. Romani, who grew up in Davis, will share the 2013 Rossi Prize with Alice Harding of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The prize is being awarded by the American Astronomical Society for establishing a theoretical framework for understanding gamma-ray pulsars.

Gamma-ray pulsars are unusual cosmic objects: They are the remnants of massive stars that have exploded as supernovae and are now rapidly spinning neutron stars that emit gamma-ray photons and sometimes radio photons. By elucidating the theoretical behavior of these irregular objects, Harding and Romani made possible many of the observations made with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

“While pulsars were discovered nearly 50 years ago via their radio emissions, it turns out that the radio pulses are just an energetically insignificant echo of the particle accelerators blasting away in these exotic stars’ magenetospheres,” Romani said in a news release. “Fermi, by detecting gamma rays from over 100 of these neutron stars, has revealed to us the heart of the pulsar machine.”

The prize is awarded annually by the American Astronomical Society’s High-Energy Astrophysics Division to recognize significant contributions in high-energy astrophysics. The award is named in honor of Bruno Rossi, an authority on cosmic ray physics and a pioneer in the field of X-ray astronomy.

Romani graduated from Davis High School in 1979.

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Keith Boylan, 43, of Winters, has been appointed deputy secretary of veteran services at the California Department of Veterans Affairs. Boylan has been government relations liaison at the California Association of County Veteran Service Agencies since 2012 and government relations and community education manager at the Institute for Veteran Policy since 2008.

He was owner and operator of Boylan Window Fashions from 2004 to 2008 and Gulf War program coordinator at Swords to Plowshares from 1998 to 2003.

A tactical fire specialist in the U.S. Army from 1989 to 1992, he is a member of the American Legion and of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

This position does not require Senate confirmation and the annual compensation is $119,616. Boylan is a Democrat.

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Air Force Reserve Airman 1st Class Helen E. Dahlberg of Woodland graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.

The airman completed an intensive, eight-week program that included training in military discipline and studies, Air Force core values, physical fitness, and basic warfare principles and skills.

Dahlberg earned distinction as an honor graduate. The daughter of Jonathan Dahlberg of Woodland, she is a 2001 graduate of Woodland High School. She received a bachelor’s degree in 2005 from San Francisco State University.

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Olivia Marie Campa, a third-year medical student at UC Davis, will receive the American Medical Association Foundation’s 2013 Leadership Award for outstanding non-clinical leadership skills in advocacy, community service and education at the foundation’s annual Excellence in Medicine Awards ceremony on Feb. 11 in Washington, D.C.

Campa is one of 20 medical students, residents, fellows and early-career physicians from around the country to receive the leadership award, which provides special training to further develop skills as future leaders in medicine and community affairs.

Campa has distinguished herself as a leader working to reduce inequities in health care and to create educational opportunities for populations underrepresented in medicine, particularly those in low-income communities. She co-directed Clinica Tepati, a nonprofit, community-run clinic that provides free health-care services to uninsured, socio-economically disadvantaged and medically underserved Latinos in the Sacramento area.

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Rex Hime, a UC Davis Law School graduate, has been appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the California State Fair and Exposition board of directors, where he has been a member since 1996.

Hime, 64, of Loomis, has been president and chief executive officer at the California Business Properties Association since 1984. He was senior assistant to the minority caucus chairman at the California State Assembly from 1983 to 1984 and held multiple positions at the California Commission for Economic Development from 1979 to 1983, including executive director and deputy director.

This position requires Senate confirmation and there is no compensation. Hime is a Republican.

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Terren Dominguez and Monica Fadel were recently listed on the 2012 fall semester dean’s list at the University of Portland. Students need at least a 3.5 grade-point average to be eligible for the dean’s list.