In this Laurels column, find the 2026 Communicator Awards, the Jacquelyn Anderson Wellness Innovation Award and more.

Dateline UC Davis welcomes news of faculty and staff awards for publication in Laurels. Send information to dateline@ucdavis.edu.

The Communicator Awards

The Office of Strategic Communications has earned eight Communicator Awards from the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts for various campaigns and articles from 2025-26. The Communicator Awards honors marketing, communications and creative projects for any audience. They provide winners and their clients recognition and give communications and creative professionals proof and validation that their work is highly regarded by their peers within the industry.

The 2026 Award of Excellence winners are:

• Two weeks until the UC app deadline (Gen-Z edition), in the category Social Video-Schools and Universities
• From Labs to Lives, in the category Campaign-Educational Institutions
• Just One Spore, in the category Individual Episodes-Schools and Universities
• Native Turtles Return to Yosemite After Removal of Invasive Bullfrogs, in the category General-Column or Editorial
• New Report: Aggie Square Boosts UC Davis’ $13.2B Annual Economic Impact, in the category External Communications-Press Release

The 2026 Award of Distinction winners are:

• An Extreme Tree Hunt in the Sierra Nevada, in the category General-Column or Editorial
• Dateline UC Davis, in the category Employee and Internal Communications-Newsletter
• Gen-Z Hopecore (a message from our Director of Undergraduate Admissions), in the category Social Video-Schools and Universities

– Kat Arthur

Council of Economic Advisors

Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced new leaders and membership of the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors, including Ina Simonovska, a professor of economics at UC Davis and a leading expert on global finance and trade. 

Simonovska became increasingly interested in state’s economy in 2025 when the projected budget went from a surplus to a deficit. She wanted to understand whether April’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, which imposed a 10% tariff on all imported goods, had played a role. 

Her earlier research on tariffs was cited by the federal government when it developed its tariff policy. Her subsequent research on the Liberation Day tariffs found that while they may have yielded modest economic benefits, the complicated realities of global trade may have offset those gains and even led to economic losses. 

– Alex Russell

Academia Europaea

Distinguished Research Professor of Computer Science Premkumar Devanbu has been elected a Foreign Member of the Academia Europaea, also known as the Academy of Europe.

The Academia Europaea promotes European research and fosters interdisciplinary and international scholarship by advancing the excellence of scientists and scholars across disciplines spanning the humanities, law, social sciences, mathematics, medicine and the natural and technological sciences. Election to the Academy is by invitation only, with Foreign Member status requiring extensive prior collaboration with European institutions.

Devanbu’s election as a foreign member reflects years of sustained collaborations in Europe. He has worked with researchers at several universities, including the University of Zurich, the University of Saarland, the University of Stuttgart, TU Eindhoven, TU Delft, University College London and the University of Edinburgh. 

Devanbu investigates how language models can be used in software development and the impact they have. In 2012, Devanbu and colleagues at UC Davis were among the first to demonstrate that language models could be applied usefully to programming tasks in the paper “On the Naturalness of Software,” which received the Most Influential Paper Award from the 2022 International Conference on Software Engineering. 

– Jessica Heath

Jacquelyn Anderson Wellness Innovation Award

“How can we use clothing textiles, new materials and digital fabrication technology to enhance the quality of our lives through design?” This is the question Gözde Göncü-Berk and her students seek to answer every day in the WearLab and the newly minted Maria Manetti Shrem Institute for Sustainable Design, Fashion and Textiles. 

Göncü-Berk, associate professor of design and a leader in the emerging field of wearable technology, recently received the prestigious Jacquelyn Anderson Wellness Innovation Award from the UC Davis Office of Wellness Education. The award honors individuals who exhibit outstanding innovation in research, education or advocacy within the realm of wellness. 

The award celebrates Göncü-Berk’s work at WearLab, which explores the potential of electronic textiles, smart clothing and digital fabrication technologies to promote health and well-being. She focuses on how electronic textiles — a type of wearable technology that is soft and blends in with clothing in our existing wardrobes — can help offer relief and hope to people, regardless of a person’s disability status, demographics or profession.

“We approach garments not as passive layers but as active agents capable of shaping human experience,” said Göncü-Berk, speaking at the award ceremony. “Through thoughtful design, wearable systems can play a transformative role across the full continuum of health and well-being.”

– Abhinaya Kasagani