Dr. Matthew Ari Jendian, director of the Jan and Bud Richter Center for Community Engagement and Service-Learning, has been named the recipient of the Trailblazer Award by the Central California Legal Services. He will be honored at Together for Justice event, featuring dinner, live music, and a silent auction on Oct. 8, from 6 - 9 p.m at Toca Madera Winery.

Dr. Tinneke Van Camp, professor in criminology, co-organized a week-long meeting last June in the Netherlands with scholars, practitioners and people with lived experiences tied to wrongful convictions from around the world.

The meeting was titled "Life after exoneration: Is the worst yet to come?" and was funded by a grant through the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The meeting resulted from an event she co-organized at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in July 2025 in Oñati, Spain.

She also attended and presented at the International Association for Relationship Research Conference in July 2026 in Glasgow, Scotland.

The panel presentation was titled "They don't see it the same way," and included discussion on divergent perceptions of relational power and harm in dating relationships. The panel discussion also focused on control and coercion, prevention strategies and related sexual education teaching methods in schools.

Van Camp’s classes and research often specialize in the topics of victimology, restorative justice and the consequences of wrongful convictions.

Dr. Margaret Ellis, associate professor of plant science, co-published a research article in the Frontiers in Plant Science journal titled "Assessment of the potential of novel Californian grapevine Trichoderma isolates to reduce colonization of fungal trunk canker pathogens and Xylella fastidiosa."

This project is associated with another recent publication that was part of former graduate student Eric Antrim’s research, which Ellis helped supervise.

Both research articles focus on Trichoderma isolates that were isolated from grapevines and were evaluated as potential biocontrol agents to combat fungal trunk diseases in grape and the bacterial pathogen Xylella fastidiosa.

Some of the Trichoderma isolates showed promise in these initial studies and are now being further evaluated and characterized.

This work was primarily completed in Dr. Christopher Wallis's lab at the USDA in Parlier. Ellis and other students have also morphologically characterized the Trichoderma, including two new isolates that are likely new species, at the Jordan Agricultural Research Center.

Drs. Yuanyuan Xie in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Shuo Wu and Woonki Na, both in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, published research on "Modeling based SOC estimation for commercial EV Li-ion batteries under vibration conditions."

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