Professor Imwinkelried to Receive UC Davis' Distinguished Emeritus Award
Professor Emeritus Edward Imwinkelried has been honored with UC Davis’ 2025-26 Distinguished Emeritus Award.
The nation’s premier scholar in evidence law, Imwinkelried has maintained his extraordinary productivity since retiring from UC Davis School of Law in 2013, after nearly three decades of service.
The UC Davis Emeriti Association, in bestowing the campus-wide award, noted Imwinkelried’s “sustained contributions to the law of evidence and the science that underlies it,” along with his continued, significant influence on “our campus and the broader national legal community.”
Post-retirement, Imwinkelried has continued to publish works that shape national and international standards, including Scientific Evidence (7th edition), McCormick on Evidence (9th edition), and Evidentiary Foundations (13th edition), and remains the most-cited evidence law scholar in the United States. Invited to give talks around the world, Imwinkelried advises and mentors judges, practitioners and scholars on complex evidence issues.
In recognition of his ongoing impact on the legal academy, Imwinkelried received the John Henry Wigmore Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of American Law Schools’ Evidence section in 2021. Imwinkelried also is co-author of The New Wigmore: A Treatise on Evidence, inspired by the late Northwestern University law dean’s groundbreaking work Wigmore on Evidence.
As his writings continue to influence the direction of legal doctrine, Imwinkelried remains an active presence in King Hall. A three-time recipient of UC Davis Law’s Distinguished Teaching Award, Imwinkelried has taught Scientific Evidence six times since his retirement, most recently in 2024, receiving the highest scores and superlatives from students.
As one student remarked, “Learning scientific evidence from Professor Imwinkelried is like learning basketball from Michael Jordan.”
The law school will recognize Imwinkelried's award at its Celebrating King Hall event on April 29 in the King Hall courtyard.