Biography

“A catalyst is the most subtle and effective way to control a chemical reaction,” notes Bruce Gates, a distinguished professor in the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. “Nature does it, and the chemical industry does it.”

Linda Katehi’s work in electronic circuit design has led to national and international awards as both an educator and a technical leader, along with close to two dozen U.S. patents. This seems a natural career path for a scholar and scientist who obtained her bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1977 from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, followed by master’s and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from UCLA in 1981 and ’84.

Ray Krone’s love of aircraft bookended his impressively busy career as a civil engineer and soil scientist. He piloted a P-38 airplane over Germany during World War II, as a member of the U.S. Army Air Corps’ 31st Photoreconnaissance Squadron; his subsequent love of flying continued right up to the moment he died of a heart attack in December 2000, while working on his own plane in a hangar at the Yolo County Airport.

If you can’t imagine life without a TV remote — and if you are under a certain age, you probably can’t — thank Jerry Woodall, who joined the faculty of the UC Davis College of Engineering in July 2012, as a distinguished professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, moving from Purdue University.

On Oct. 7, 2009, Bernie Alder — a retired physicist and professor emeritus in the UC Davis Department of Applied Science — received the National Medal of Science from President Barack Obama.

This was merely one of many honors acknowledging Alder’s world-changing academic and research career. Most notably, he is recognized as the founder of molecular dynamics, a type of computer simulation used for studying the motions and interactions of atoms over time.

One morning in the spring of 2007, as UC Davis Professor Emeritus Zuhair Munir was teaching his undergraduate course, “Introduction to Materials Science,” the proceedings were interrupted when Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef entered the classroom to surprise Munir with a presentation of the UC Davis Foundation Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement. The prize, created to celebrate the very best in teaching and scholarship at UC Davis, included a cash award of $35,000.