Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal
The Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal recognizes alumni whose professional and personal achievements bring special honor to the College of Engineering. It is presented each June as a part of the annual commencement ceremony for undergraduate engineers.
Each nominee must be a UC Davis engineering graduate with fifteen or more years of professional experience; have a record of outstanding professional or technical achievement; and have rendered distinguished service to the College of Engineering, the engineering profession, or the community; or have contributed in a significant way to enhancing the reputation of UC Davis. A selection committee comprised of both faculty and alumni, including the medal's previous winners, choose each year's recipient.
Recognize a Distinguished Alum
UC Davis alumni and faculty are invited to participate by submitting a nomination for the award using our online form.
Supporting materials should be submitted electronically to Amy McGuire; via fax at 530-752-3849; or by mail to:
Amy McGuire - DEAM
Engineering Dean’s Office
One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616-5294
Nomination packets must be submitted by April 18, 2009.
2009: Howard Stone
Howard Stone '82 Chemical Engineering, a professor of engineering at Harvard University, is the 2009 recipient of the UC Davis College of Engineering Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal.
Stone, who received his Ph.D. at Caltech, is considered a preeminent international scholar in microfluidics. He recently was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest professional distinctions accorded an engineer, for his work developing fundamental concepts and novel applications in microfluidics and for improving the understanding of small-scale, viscous-flow phenomena. Among his numerous honors, including awards at Harvard for undergraduate teaching, Stone received the first G. K. Batchelor Prize, sponsored by the Journal of Fluid Mechanics and Cambridge University Press to honor the most important fluid mechanicians of our time.
Stone holds the Vicky Joseph Professorship of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard. He recently accepted a position at Princeton.
The Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal recognizes alumni whose professional and personal achievements bring special honor to the College of Engineering. It is presented each June as a part of the annual commencement ceremony for undergraduate engineers. The award recognizes the recipient's record of outstanding professional and technical achievement, as well as distinguished service to the College, to the engineering profession or the community.
2008: Pamela J. Fair
Pamela J. Fair was honored at the College of Engineering’s Spring Commencement ceremony in June with the 2008 Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal. The award recognizes the College’s most accomplished alumni—men and women whose professional and personal achievements bring special honor to the College.
Fair, who received her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at UC Davis in 1980, is the chief environmental officer and vice president of environmental, safety and facilities for Southern California Gas Co. and San Diego Gas and Electric, both owned by Sempra Energy. Southern California Gas Co. is the nation’s largest natural gas distribution utility, serving more than 20 million consumers in Southern California, while San Diego Gas and Electric provides electricity to 3.4 million consumers in San Diego and southern Orange counties. Read more »
2007: W. Allen Marr
The UC Davis College of Engineering and the Cal Aggie Engineering Alumni Association have awarded the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal to Dr. W. Allen Marr, a geotechnical engineer and President and CEO of Geocomp Corporation. Marr specializes in the design and construction of large earthworks, risk management for underground construction, and instrumentation and real-time monitoring systems for construction projects.
Marr received his bachelor of science degree in civil engineering from the UC Davis College of Engineering in 1970 and went on to earn his masters degree and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Marr has developed techniques for monitoring the stability, movement and pressure in earthworks projects, using sensors, wireless communications, automated analysis and visualization of data. He has consulted on such enormous projects as Boston’s multi-billion dollar central artery, Dulles Airport, the new World Trade Center construction and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Washington, D.C., as well as projects in the Netherlands, Japan, Argentina and Korea.
By developing sensing, monitoring, measurement and analysis technologies, Marr has enabled full-scale construction projects, particularly those that transect busy human environments, to be built more safely and efficiently, at lower cost. He has been able to monitor and make improvements in real time on some of the largest construction projects in the world, using them as his natural laboratories and developing new technology that will benefit future projects for many years to come.
At the same time, Marr has worked to develop national standards in testing, monitoring and analyzing. He publishes widely and serves on a number of professional society committees and boards.
The Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal is awarded annually at the SpringCommencement Ceremonies for the College of Engineering to an alumnus whose professional and personal achievements bring special honor to the College through distinguished service to the engineering profession and society.
2006: Robert H. Davis
The UC Davis College of Engineering and the Cal Aggie Engineering Alumni Association have awarded the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Medal to Dr. Robert H. Davis, Dean of the Engineering College and Patten Professor of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado. He is internationally known for his work in biotechnology and the hydrodynamics of complex fluids.
Davis received his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering from the UC Davis College of Engineering in 1978 and was awarded the University Medal after an undergraduate career of distinction. After an equally distinguished graduate career at Stanford University, Davis has contributed substantially to his field as a researcher and educator, earning the respect of colleagues in chemical engineering and higher education.
Davis has been a tireless advocate in his field, organizing symposia, workshops and programs that promote chemical engineering, research, industry collaboration, student training and internships.
He has published over 150 papers on chemical engineering research topics and education.
Dr. Davis also is widely respected by students for his teaching, offering compelling lectures and demonstrations, maintaining the highest standards, while also treating his students with fairness and compassion. He is an outstanding mentor, spending countless hours helping students and young faculty to think critically, learn through discovery and communicate effectively. Davis also has served as a faculty mentor to graduate students participating in a National Science Foundation-funded outreach program to local high schools and middle schools.
2005: Indira Samarasekera, MAE
Dr. Indira Samarasekera received her master’s degree in mechanical engineering at UC Davis, under the supervision of Professor Zuhair A. Munir. Her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering was from the University of Ceylon in 1974 and her Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from the University of British Columbia in 1980.
Dr. Samarasekera became the first woman president of the University of Alberta, Canada, on July 1, 2005. Prior to that, she had served as the vice president of research at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where, during her five-year tenure, funding for research increased significantly. While a professor in the UBC department of materials engineering, she was director for the Centre for Metallurgical Process Engineering and the first incumbent of the Dofasco Chair in Advanced Steel Processing. She consulted extensively for industry and participated in 60 short courses on steel processing at companies around the world. She is broadly engaged in fostering research and knowledge transfer, serving on a number of boards in industry and policy development.
Dr. Samarasekera is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Mining Metallurgy and Petroleum. She has received numerous other honors, including the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, the British Columbia Science Council New Frontiers in Research Award, the Dofasco Award, the Golden Jubilee Medal, the UBC Killiam Research Prize and ten best paper awards with coworkers.
About her experience at the UC Davis College of Engineering, Dr. Samarasekera said, “I came to UC Davis from a culture in Sri Lanka where one was not always encouraged to challenge conventional wisdom. I was quickly immersed in a strong and vibrant research environment where I learned never to take anything for granted and to always challenge conventional wisdom in order to improve our knowledge and our society.”
2004: Jose J. Granda, MAE
A 1982 Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Jose Granda has spent his professional career as an outstanding professor and teacher at California State University, Sacramento. He is described as an effective and innovative teacher, whose interactive and unique style has contributed greatly to his students' problem-solving abilities. He encourages his students to research and think beyond the class material and motivates them to take up research.
While a graduate student at UC Davis, working with Dean Karnopp, he produced an outstanding thesis, sponsored by IBM. The work in that thesis has developed into a widely-used computer program. It processes bond graphic mathematical models of mechatronic systems. Computer-Aided Modeling Program-G automates the process of turning a physical description of a system into a computer simulation program, linking the theory and practice of computer modeling and simulation, and is used internationally in industry and academia.
His career has attained the highest level of engineering accomplishment. His work has focused on the broad area of modeling and simulation of engineering systems, with a particular emphasis on bond graphic modeling. His unique research on the modeling and simulation of mechatronic systems has led to invitations by NASA to join the team at the Langley Research Center and at the Johnson Space Center and he continues his research for the space station. He was given another NASA fellowship to work on the morphing project, to design the flexible-wing planes of the future. He has, in all, won three faculty fellowships from NASA. His work has been supported by research grants from Lockheed Martin, Caltrans, Boeing, PDA Engineering, and IBM.
Since 1988, in recognition of his research capabilities, he has been the chair of the technical committee for Bond Graph Modeling and Simulation of the Society for Computer Simulation International.
Professor Granda has become an internationally known scholar, with an impressive array of research papers. He has organized conferences and symposia and has been invited to present his research at universities and technical institutes all over Europe and South America. He is a member of many scientific and professional societies, including the Society for Computer Simulation, ASM, and Sigma XI, the Scientific Research Society. His outstanding record of professional and scientific achievement makes him an ambassador and a symbol of what is best in the University of California, Davis. His work has had an impact on his field, his profession, and his alma mater.
Past Award Winners
- 2003: Richard D. Noble (Ph.D. '76 ChemE),
Professor, University of Colorado at Boulder - 2002: Richard Miller (B.S./MAE '71).
Founding president of the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering. Massachusetts - 2001: Arturo Lara Lopez, (Ph.D./BAE '80),
Director General of the University of Guanajuato. Mexico - 2000: Stephen Robinson, (B.S./MAE '78),
NASA astronaut - 1996: Ross R. Allen '69, M.S. '71, Ph.D. '75
- 1995: Wilfred Brutsaert '62
- 1994: Roy Imbsen '86
- 1993: Frank Gill '67
- 1992: Lucas Dobrzanski '68
- 1991: William Gray '69
- 1990: Randall M. German '75
- 1989: William J. Porter '68