- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Erdosh will receive a $1000 award and waived registration for the PBESA annual meeting April 10-13 in Santa Rosa.
The award memorializes a research geneticist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Wapato, Wash., with “an unmatched passion for mentoring undergraduate students in their research,” PBESA announced. Garczynski (1960-2019) specialized in the molecular genetics of codling moths and other tree fruit pests.
Erdosh is a researcher in the lab of community ecologist Louie Yang, a UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology professor and a co-founder and co-director of RSPIB. “Gwen has been particularly motivated to examine the effects of smoke on insect olfaction and behavior, and recently received a Provost's Undergraduate Fellowship (PUF) to support this work,” wrote Professor Yang in his letter of recommendation. She is developing “a Y-tube olfactometer apparatus to test some of the hypotheses she has been developing. She has been amazingly creative, innovative and independent in this work, and I'm excited to see what she learns.”
“Gwen has the skills and motivation to excel in research,” Yang noted. “She is extraordinarily knowledgeable about insect diversity and has strong and persistent interest in research. The project that Gwen is focused on is of both applied and fundamental importance, and her latest iteration of this experiment offers a good first step towards assessing the ecological importance of wildfire smoke for insects.”
Gwentomologist. Erdosh, known as “Gwentomologist” on Instagram, with 24,000 followers, anticipates receiving her bachelor's degree in 2023.
The awards packet required a two-page essay outlining the applicant's current research and future career aspirations, and a letter of nomination from a research mentor or professor. Judges scored the applicants on such attributes as energy, passion, innovation and initiative, creativity and originality an potential impact.
In her essay, Erdosh wrote that getting accepted into RSPIB and becoming a member of the Yang lab “has given me the opportunity to get critical research experience as an undergrad. My current research project aims to determine whether an insect's ability to locate food is hindered by ambient smoke."
Gwen, a 2018 graduate ofLos Gatos High School, Santa Clara County, decided at age 12 to pursue a career in entomology. She attended aBioBoot camp hosted by theBohart Museum of Entomology and then at age 16, interned with JasonDombroskie at Cornell University. Those "experiences with lab work and fieldwork led me to decide that I wanted to go into research." Her work included identifying microlepidoptra in the family Tortricidae; sampling monarch butterflies for Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) spores; catching and tagging the gray petaltail dragonfly (Petalurid) at a local state park; and collecting, identifying and presenting moths for a Moth Night program at the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History.
Costa Rico Internship. At age 17, Gwen completed a five-week internship in the summer of 2018 at the Monteverde Butterfly Gardens in Costa Rica, where she studied insects, conducted tours, and cared for the arthropods in the insectarium
Erdosh enrolled in the UC Davis entomology program in 2019. "I am interested in both insect ecology and systematics, and I plan on going to graduate school for a PhD in entomology," Erdosh wrote in her essay. "I aspire to be a professor who not only carries out unique and meaningful research, but is also a true educator and role model for students, inspiring young scientists to pursue their ambitions and remain curious about the natural world. More specifically about entomology, I want to show people the beauty and peculiarity of arthropods; I love public outreach and want to spread my passion for insects to others. While I did not know Dr. Stephen Garczynski personally, I would like to think that he was this kind of person, and that I would have looked up to him, as I do my own mentor Louie Yang."
Erdosh launched her Instagram account in 2013 to share her passion for moths and butterflies (Lepidoptera). “Back then, it was one of only a few accounts that focused on such a niche interest," she said in a recent interview. On her account, she posts her macro images, with detailed captions about the featured insect. "My goal is to not only teach others, but also learn a lot myself. I also post fun and engaging videos to encourage others to pursue entomology. Many times, people have told me that my page helped them decide that they wanted to pursue entomology as a career! I love being able to spread the love of insects to others, and will continue to be active on my page.”
Additionally, she maintains a YouTube account as “gwentomologist.”
Erdosh was recently featured on Sacramento Channel 31's Good Day Sacramento in a segment on "Bringing Bugs to Instagram." (See Part 1 and Part 2)
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
UC Davis faculty and UC Cooperative Extension specialists fared well, with Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, receiving the highest award, the C. W. Woodworth Award. (See news story)
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology received the Distinction in Student Mentoring. (See news story)
Walter Leal, distinguished professor in the UC Davis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and a former professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, won the Award for Excellence in Teaching. (See news story)
Emily Symmes, who received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 2012, and is an agricultural entomologist specializing in integrated pest management (she was formerly with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources), was part of the almond team that won the PBESA Entomology Team Award.
The complete list of recipients, as announced by PBESA President Elizabeth Beers, professor of entomology at Washington State University:
C. W. Woodworth Award
Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Award for Excellence in Teaching
Walter Leal, UC Davis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Distinction in Student Mentoring
Robert Kimsey, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Award for Excellence in Integrated Pest Management
Surendra Dara, UC Cooperative Extension, San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology Award
Laura Lavine, Washington State University Department of Entomology, Pullman, Wash.
Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology Award
Dong-Hwan Choe, UC Riverside Department of Entomology, Riverside
Excellence in Early Career Award
Priyadarshini Chakrabarti, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore.
Entomology Team Work Award
David Haviland (team leader)
UC Cooperative Extension, Bakersfield
Team: Brad Higbee, Charles Burks, Jhalendra Rijal, Emily Symmes, Robert Curtis, Stephanie Rill
John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award
Jacqueline Serrano, who holds a doctorate from UC Riverside, is currently with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) in Wapato, Wash.
Student Leadership Award
Megan Asche, Ph.D candidate, Washington State University Department of Entomology
PBESA encompasses 11 western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming), U.S. territories, and parts of Canada and Mexico.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It is the highest graduate student award given by PBSA, which encompasses 11 Western states, U.S. territories, and parts of Canada and Mexico. Its parent organization, the Entomological Society of America (ESA), will honor the six Comstock award winners--one from each branch--at its Nov. 17-20 meeting in St. Louis.
UC Davis recipients of the PBESA awards:
2019: Brendon Boudinot (major professor Phil Ward)
2015: Mohammad-Amir Aghaee (major professor the late Larry Godfrey)
2014: Kelly Hamby (major professor Frank Zalom)
2013: Matan Shelomi (major professor Lynn Kimsey)
2008: Christopher Barker (major professor William Reisen)
1983: Elaine Backus (major professor the late Donald McLean)
Boudinot, who specializes in ants, was praised for his academic record, leadership, public service activities, participation in professional activities, and his publications. “A highly respected scientist, teacher and leader with a keen intellect, unbridled enthusiasm, and an incredible penchant for public service, Brendon maintains a 4.00 grade point average; has published 12 outstanding publications on insect systematics (some are landmarks or ground-breaking publications); and engages in exceptional academic, student and professional activities,” wrote nominator Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Ward said that Boudinot, despite being at an early stage of his academic career, has already published several landmark papers on insect systematics. "This includes a remarkable article, just published in Arthropod Structure & Development, in which Brendon presents a comprehensive theory of genital homologies across all Hexapoda (Boudinot 2018). Based on careful comparative morphological study and conducted within a phylogenetic framework, this paper is a major contribution to the field and is destined to become a “classic." This could have been a decade-long study by any investigator, and yet it is just one chapter of Brendon's thesis!"
Active in PBESA and ESA, Boudinot received multiple “President's Prize” awards for his research presentations at national ESA meetings. He organized the ESA symposium, “Evolutionary and Phylogenetic Morphology,” at the 2018 meeting in Vancouver, B.C. , and delivered a presentation on “Male Ants: Past, Present and Prospects” at the 2016 International Congress of Entomology meeting in Orlando, Fla.
Boudinot served on—and anchored—three of the UC Davis Linnaean Games teams that won national or international ESA championships. The Linnaean Games are a lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competition on entomological facts played between university-sponsored student teams.
Boudinot has served as president of the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association since 2006, and is active in the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day; he has co-chaired the department's Picnic Day Committee since 2017.
Where are the previous UC Davis recipients of the Comstock award?
- Mohammad-Amir Aghaee is a research entomologist with Bayer Crop Science, Union City, Tenn.
- Kelly Hamby is an assistant professor of entomology and extension specialist at the University of Maryland, College Park
- Matan Shelomi is an assistant professor at the National Taiwan University, Tapei
- Christopher Barker is an associate professor in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
- Elaine Backus is a research entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Parlier
The award memorializes John Henry Comstock (1849-1931), an American entomologist, researcher and educator known for his studies of scale insects and butterflies and moths, which provided the basis for systematic classification. Comstock was a member of the faculty of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., for most of his career, except for his service as a chief entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1879-81).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Pollination ecologist Neal Williams, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology professor, is organizing and chairing the symposium, which is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, April 2 in the Hyatt Regency Mission Bay Spa and Marina.
“The symposium will include scientific contributions from leaders in the fields of bee ecology, conservation and pollination,” announced Williams. “All are individuals whose work and specialty have been influenced by Robbin and his research program."
The scientists speaking, in addition to emcee Williams, include:
- Claire Kremen, University of British Columbia, formerly of UC Berkeley
- James Strange, USDA's Agricultural Research Service
- Heidi Dobson, Whitman College, Walla Walla, Wash.
- Gretchen Lebuhn, San Francisco State University
- Richard Hatfield, Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation
- Terry Griswold, USDA's Agricultural Research Service
- Leslie Saul-Gershenz, UC Davis
- Gordon Frankie, UC Berkeley
“The symposium will be followed by a social time during which hope to share our gratitude with Robbin for his lifetime of work, mentoring and friendship,” Williams said.
Thorp, a member of the UC Davis entomology faculty for 30 years, from 1964-1994, achieved emeritus status in 1994 but has continued to engage in research, teaching and public service. In his retirement, he co-authored two books Bumble Bees of North America, an Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014) and California Bees and Blooms, A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014).
Thorp, a tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, is known for his expertise, dedication and passion in protecting native pollinators, especially bumble bees, and for his teaching, research and public service. He is an authority on pollination ecology, ecology and systematics of honey bees, bumble bees, vernal pool bees, conservation of bees, contribution of native bees to crop pollination, and bees of urban gardens and agricultural landscapes. He is active in research projects and open houses at the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
Thorp received his bachelor of science degree in zoology (1955) and his master's degree in zoology (1957) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He earned his doctorate in entomology in 1964 from UC Berkeley, the same year he joined the UC Davis entomology faculty. He taught courses from 1970 to 2006 on insect classification, general entomology, natural history of insects, field entomology, California insect diversity, and pollination ecology.
Every summer since 2002, Thorp has volunteered his time and expertise to teach at The Bee Course, an annual workshop sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and held at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz. The intensive 9-day workshop, considered the world's premiere native bee biology and taxonomic course, is geared for conservation biologists, pollination ecologists and other biologists who want to gain greater knowledge of the systematics and biology of bees.
An authority on Franklin's bumble bee, Bombus franklini, Thorp has monitored the bumble bee population since 1998 in its narrow distribution range of southern Oregon and northern California. He has not seen it since 2006 and it is feared extinct. In August of 2016 a documentary crew from CNN, headed by John Sutter followed him to a meadow where Thorp last saw Franklin's bumble bee. He wrote about Thorp, then 82, in a piece he called "The Old Man and the Bee," a spinoff of Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."
Thorp was instrumental in placing the bumble bee on the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). Long active in the North America IUCN Bumblebee Specialist Group, Thorp served as its regional co-chair, beginning in 2011.
Thorp was named a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco in 1986; recipient of the Edward A. Dickson Emeriti Professorship of UC Davis in 2010; and recipient of the UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Award in 2015. Other honors include: member of the UC Davis Bee Team that won PBESA's Team Award in 2013. In addition, he is a past president (2010-2011) of the Davis Botanical Society, and former chair (1992-2011) of the Advisory Committee for the Jepson Prairie Reserve, UC Davis/Natural Reserve System.
Since its inception, Thorp has been involved in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee garden on Bee Biology Road operated by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, installed in 2009. To establish a baseline, he began monitoring the site for bees in 2008. He has since detected more than 80 species of bees.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Molecular biologist Shirley Luckhart, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis School of Medicine's Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (and soon will transition to the University of Idaho), has been named the recipient of the Medical, Urban and Veterinary Entomology Award.
Ant specialist Marek Borowiec, who received his doctorate in entomology in June 2016, studying with major professor Phil Ward, won the Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity Award. He is now a postdoctoral fellow at Arizona State University, Tempe.
Third-year graduate student Ralph Washington Jr., who studies with major professors Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and assistant professor Brian Johnson, won the Student Leadership Award.
The three will be among the 13 award recipients honored at the PBESA meeting, April 2-5 in Portland, Ore. PBESA encompasses 11 Western U.S. states, plus several U.S. territories and parts of Canada and Mexico.
Ralph Washington Jr.
Ralph Washington Jr., who received his bachelor of science degree in entomology at UC Davis in 2010, is known as an outstanding scholar and leader. He holds a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. He has also previously received a Gates Millennium Scholarship, a Ronald E. McNair Graduate Fellowship, and a Monsanto Graduate Student Scholarship.
Washington is active in leadership roles on the UC Davis campus, UC systemwide, and in PBESA and the Entomological Society of America (ESA). He captained the UC Davis Linnaean Games team to several first place wins at the PBESA level and then led his team in winning the national championship in both 2015 and 2016. He was an integral part of the UC Davis Student Debate Team that won the ESA's 2014 national championship. In addition, he swept first place in the Natural History Trivia Competition at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Naturalists.
Washington's leadership activities include 2015-2016 co-chair of the UC Council of Student Body Presidents, and 2015-2016 Chair of the UC Davis Graduate Students' Association. He was named Graduate Student of the Year in 2015 and 2016 at the UC Davis Black Affirmation Awards. He is currently president of the University of California Student Association. He is active in social justice issues, including gender-based violence and misconduct, and institutional oppression.
Washington was one of nine people invited to speak at TEDxUCDavis Conference (Igniting X). "All human beings are born curious, but the wrong conditions can jeopardize that curiosity," he said, speaking on “Science, Poverty and the Human Imagination.”
“Many children in poverty grow up feeling a lack of control over their circumstances, and this severely inhibits their ability to imagine a reality other than their own,” said Washington, who grew up in an impoverished family. “Targeted science education starting from a young age can inspire and help struggling children."
Marek Borowiec
Marek Borowiec, who holds a master's degree in zoology from the University of Wroclaw, Poland, joined the Phil Ward lab in 2010, receiving training as a molecular phylogeneticist and computational biologist. Borowiec is now a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of evolutionary biologist/ant specialist Christian Rabeling, Arizona State University, where he studies the genomics of speciation and evolution of social parasitism in Formica ants.
One of the highlights of Borowiec's career: last year he won the coveted George C. Eickwort Student Research Award, sponsored by the North American Section of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI-NAS).
“Marek is an astute and dedicated scientist, with an insightful mind, diverse interests, and trenchant drive,” wrote Phil Ward in the awards nominations packet. “Marek's Ph.D. research was motivated by a strong interest in the patterns and processes underlying the genesis of biological diversity. He explored this through a range of studies on ant systematics, phylogeny and biogeography. The principal focus was on the evolution of army ants—those charismatic and notorious creatures that have a profound ecological impact in many communities—and he showed decisively that the ‘army ant syndrome' evolved independently in the New World and Old World tropics, settling a long-standing controversy on this matter.
Borowiec has published more than 25 papers, many focusing on the phylogeny of army ants, relationships among “basal” lineages of ants, and a collaborative phylogenomic project on ants and their relatives.
He is a subject editor for ZooKeys, an innovative systematics journal, and Biodiversity Data Journal; he receives frequent requests to review manuscripts for other journals.
Shirley Luckhart
Shirley Luckhart was lauded for her “highly regarded expertise on molecular cell biology and biochemistry of malaria parasite transmission.” Her expertise on vector-borne diseases encompasses mosquito and black fly vectors of filarial nematodes and Lyme disease ecology as well as mosquito biology, disease pathogenesis, and transmission blocking agents for malaria.
Luckhart, who received her doctorate in entomology in 1995 from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, joined the UC Davis faculty in 2004 from Virginia Tech. Since 1997, the National Institutes of Health has continuously funded her research on host-parasite interactions in malaria.
She was named a Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 2014. She and her colleagues drew international acclaim when Time Magazine, in 2010, named their work on a “malaria-proof” or genetically engineered mosquito as one of the “Top 50 Inventions of the Year,” ranking it No. 1 in the health category.
While most of her work has been lab-based, Luckhart has worked with collaborators in Kenya for the past 20 years and on highly productive field- and lab-based collaborative projects in Mali, Cameroon, and Colombia. Her career includes principal investigator on large awards to both national and international teams and co-director of multiple National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grants. She currently serves on the NIH Vector Biology study section and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for the Biodefense and Emerging Infections Research Resources Repository (BEI Resources).
For the past five years, Luckhart has chaired the national BEI Vectors Focus Group, which works with NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases leadership to significantly expand vector and vector-borne pathogen resources globally. These efforts also led to the development of an independent Allied Insect Biology working group to engage scientists in trans-disciplinary workshops and collaborations across plant, animal, and human vector-borne diseases. In recognition of her efforts, Luckhart was invited to deliver the keynote address at the Keystone meeting in Taos, N.M., in May 2015.
Luckhart also received $100,000 from Grand Challenges Explorations, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to advance her work in developing nutritional supplements to reverse the malaria-induced intestinal damage that contributes to the development of non-typhoidal Salmonella (NTS) bacteremia in malaria-infected children.
At UC Davis, she served as interim co-director of the Center for Vector-borne Diseases from 2014-15 and chaired the graduate level Designated Emphasis in the Biology of Vector-borne Diseases from 2012 to just recently, when she stepped down from these duties. She also directs a large collaborative insectary facility at UC Davis, providing support to vector-borne disease research programs in the School of Medicine, the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the School of Veterinary Medicine.
Luckhart has published 93 peer-reviewed articles, with more than 2500 citations, and five book chapters. Throughout her career, she has taught and mentored nine doctoral students, who have gone on to successful careers at the state, national or international level. In recognition of her work, she received mentoring awards from the UC Davis Consortium for Women and Research (2012) and the UC Davis Graduate Student Association (2016).
Luckhart will transition to the University of Idaho, effective May 15. She and her husband, Edwin Lewis, associate dean for Agricultural Sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology will expand their research programs and also co-direct the new Center for Health in the Human Ecosystem, which will focus on how the impacts of land use, including agriculture, urbanization and deforestation, interact to impact transmission and control of disease agents of people, animals and plants.
Luckhart's primary appointment is in the Department of Plant, Soil and Entomological Sciences (PSES) in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and her secondary appointment is in the Department of Biological Sciences. Lewis' appointment is in PSES.
Lewis won the PBESA's Integrated Pest Management Excellence Award in 2016,
Other 2017 PBESA award recipients to be honored at the PBESA meeting in Oregon:
- Pacific Branch C.W. Woodworth Award- Gerhard and Regine Gries, Simon Fraser University, Canada
- Award for Excellence in Teaching- Helen Spafford, University of Hawaii, Manoa
- Award for Excellence in Extension- Carol Black, Washington State University (WSU), Pullman
- Award for Excellence in Integrated Pest Management- Elizabeth Beers, WSU
- Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology Award- Ramesh Sagili, Oregon State University, Corvallis
- Plant-Insect Ecosystems Award- David Crowder, WSU
- Distinction in Student Mentoring- James Strange, USDA, Logan, Utah
- Excellence in Early Career- Sarah Woodard, UC Riverside
- John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award- Amelia Lindsey, UC Riverside
- Entomology Team Award-- Lisa Neven, Wee Yee and Sunil Kumar, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins--for their project “Pest Risk Analyses for Temperate Fruit Flies in Exported Fruits Team”