• Irene McCann of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage’s La Jolla office has been recently awarded the Certified Negotiation Expert (CNE) designation by the Real Estate Negotiation Institute (RENI), a negotiation training and coaching company. The CNE designation is earned by real estate professionals upon the successful completion of the RENI’s formal negotiation training, and agents who earn this certification are amongst the top one percent of all agents in the nation. • The Royal Society has announced that Salk Institute molecular biologist Joanne Chory, Ph.D., an expert on how plants regulate their growth, has been named a foreign member of the Royal Society, the world’s oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. She is being recognized as “a beacon of scientific excellence and relentless ambassador for plant research in the international community,” according to a statement about the announcement. Chory, a professor in the institute’s plant molecular and cellular biology laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, pioneered the analysis of plant responses to their environment using a molecular genetic approach in Arabidopsis thaliana, a small weed that is easy to grow, is prolific and has the smallest genome of any flowering plant. Her laboratory has led the plant field for 20 years, making major discoveries in how plants grow and develop. She elucidated how plants perceive light, identified how chloroplasts signal to the nucleus and defined a novel pathway for the biosynthesis of the plant hormone auxin. She also discovered a novel steroid hormone in plants, identified the steroid receptor and elegantly dissected the signaling network. • La Jolla-based public relations firm Brice & Associates has earned the Utah Office of Tourism’s “Best Public Relations Campaign in Organizations with Annual Advertising Budgets Under $250,000” for La Jollan John Brice’s work for Brian Head Resort.   The partnership between Brian Head Resort and Brice & Associates, which is celebrating 25 years of service this month, “was instrumental in articulating and disseminating our story because Brice & Associates is an organization that not only has the expertise to do the work but has the passion and dedication to ensure the work is done right,” said Brian Head spokesman Jon Christoffersen in a recent statement. Brice & Associates’ clients have included Borrego Springs, AT&T, Rubio’s, Hyatt and La Casa Del Zorro Desert Resort.  Brice & Associates’ awards include being named “Best in Tourism PR in Southern California” in 2009 by California Travel & Tourism Commission and The California Travel Association.