Nina Amenta wins 2021 UC Davis College of Engineering Outstanding Faculty Award

Computer science professor Nina Amenta was honored with the 2021 Outstanding Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching by the UC Davis College of Engineering.

Each year, the UC Davis College of Engineering recognizes faculty members who have demonstrated excellence in teaching, research and community with the Outstanding Faculty Awards. Faculty members are nominated by their respective departments and are selected by the college’s faculty awards committee.

Amenta, along with three others across the college, received awards honoring her exceptional accomplishments during the college's annual Celebration of Faculty Excellence on September 30.

Amenta is known for her research that uses geometry to solve problems in computer graphics and visualization, especially for modeling objects from three-dimensional data, optimization and data structures. She chaired the department from 2013-2017, and served as vice-chair from 2007-2012. In these roles, she maintained the quality of instruction, modernized the curriculum and made computer science available to students across the campus through courses for non-majors.

Amenta's undergraduate degree was in classical civilization, but worked as a computer programmer after graduating, including five years of writing firmware for medical ultrasound machines. She studied in UC Berkeley's Reentry Program before getting her Ph.D. from the university. Since joining UC Davis in 2002, Amenta has received an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship and a UC Davis Chancellor’s Fellowship. She has also worked with the Center for Information Technology in the Interest of Society and the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science.

The Celebration of Faculty Excellence event also honored all other computer science faculty members who received awards from September 2020-August 2021. Their names and honors are listed below:

• Hao Chen, Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Member
• Prem Devanbu, The Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Software Engineering Outstanding Research Award
• Matt Farrens, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Senior Members; Association for Computing Machinery Senior Member
• Vladimir Filkov, Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Member
• Dipak Ghosal, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Senior Member
• Patrice Koehl, 2020-2021 Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award
• Mohammad Sadoghi, Association for Computing Machinery Senior Member
• Aditya Thakur, National Science Foundation CAREER Award; Department of Energy Early Career Award