Rose Hayden-Smith of the University of California’s Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources is this year’s recipient of ASI’s Eric Bradford and Charlie Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award.

The Bradford-Rominger award recognizes and honors individuals who exhibit the leadership, work ethic and integrity epitomized by the late Eric Bradford, a livestock geneticist who gave 50 years of service to UC Davis, and the late Charlie Rominger, a fifth-generation Yolo County farmer and land preservationist.

“I’m extremely humbled to receive the award and actually don’t feel deserving when I read about the amazing attributes and characteristics and qualities that defined the work and character of those two individuals,” Hayden-Smith said.

She has been a UC ANR Cooperative Extension 4-H youth, family and community development adviser in Ventura County since 1992. Since March 2011 she has served as the leader for ANR’s strategic initiative in sustainable food systems.

Craig McNamara — an organic farmer, president of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture and president of the Center for Land-based Learning — gave a talk titled “Changing the Way We Think about Food” at the award ceremony.

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UC Davis ophthalmology resident Bobeck Modjtahedi has been awarded one of this year’s prestigious Heed Fellowships. A graduate of UC Davis and UCD School of Medicine, Modjtahedi will finish his residency training at the UCD Eye Center in June and then continue postgraduate training at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital in Boston.

Modjtahedi is one of 20 physicians in the nation to receive a 2013-14 Heed Ophthalmic Foundation award, which encourages and supports education and research in ophthalmology and the ophthalmic sciences for individuals with exceptional ability. Each fellowship includes a $10,000 merit award.

In Boston, Modjtahedi will begin a two-year fellowship in vitreoretinal surgery. Modjtahedi also plans to expand his research focus to novel diagnostic tools and new therapeutics in ophthalmology.

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Nathan Wong of Davis presented a project titled “Youth in Action: A Comparison of America’s Hippies and China’s Red Guard” at the 15th annual Whitman Undergraduate Conference held on the Whitman College campus on April 9.

The annual conference celebrates the scholarship and creativity of the Whitman student body through a day devoted entirely to original presentations which take the form of talks, posters presentations, musical performances and artistic exhibitions. Students from every academic discipline of the college gather to share their research and creative projects with the campus community.

Wong is the son of George and Pat Wong and is a 2009 graduate of Davis High School. He is a senior history major at Whitman College, a liberal arts college in Walla Walla, Wash.

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Matan Shelomi, a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Davis department of entomology, is the recipient of the John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America.

Shelomi, who studies with major professor Lynn Kimsey, received the award at the PBESA meeting on April 9 at South Lake Tahoe.

Shelomi is one of six John Henry Comstock Award recipients, one from each ESA branch, to be honored at the ESA annual meeting Nov. 10-13 in Austin, Texas. Each winner receives an all-expenses-paid trip to the annual meeting, a $100 cash prize and a certificate.

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Thasos Athanasiou Athens of Davis has won a Angier B. Duke Memorial Scholarship to attend Duke University.

The award covers full tuition, room and board and mandatory fees for four years, as well as a six-week summer study program at the University of Oxford in England. Scholars are also offered up to $5,000 for research or other educational enrichment programs. Based on estimated tuition rates, a scholarship will be worth more than $200,000 to a student over a four-year period.

The scholarships are awarded to outstanding students who show promise of being intellectual leaders. The awards stem from the Angier B. Duke Memorial Inc., established in 1925 by university co-founder Benjamin Newton Duke in memory of his son, Angier Buchanan Duke.

The scholarship’s alumni include 18 Rhodes Scholars and 13 Marshall Scholars, including the renowned writer and Duke English professor Reynolds Price, who died last year; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Anne Tyler; NASA project scientist Hal Weaver; and Dr. Lynt Johnson, chief of transplant surgery at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Athens is a graduate of Davis High School, and is the son of Kiley and Kyriacos A. Athanasiou.

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Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed Grace Arupo Rodriguez, 35, of Rancho Cordova, as appointed deputy director of legal affairs at the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. Arupo Rodriguez earned her law degree at UC Davis and has been senior deputy city attorney for the city of Sacramento since 2012.

She was corporate counsel at the California Independent System Operator Corp. from 2007 to 2012, business associate at Downey Brand LLP from 2002 to 2006 and summer associate at Wilke Fleury Hoffelt Gould and Birney LLP in 2000.

This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $126,264. Arupo Rodriguez is a Democrat.

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Air Force Airman Tanda J. Brunson of Winters graduated from basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, San Antonio, Texas.

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

Airmen who complete basic training earn four credits toward an associate in applied science degree through the Community College of the Air Force.

Brunson is the son of Tammy Ethington of Winters. He is a 2011 graduate of Winters High School.
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Terren Dominguez of Davis recently graduated from the University of Portland with a bachelor’s degree in nursing.

The University of Portland is Oregon’s Catholic university and has been closely affiliated for nearly a century with the Congregation of Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Ind.

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Matan Shelomi holds his award. In back is Eric Natwick of PBESA.

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