- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
His appointment was announced this week by Helene Dillard, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter.
Nadler chaired the Department of Nematology for six years, until the two departments merged in 2011. He succeeds Michael Parrella, who has accepted a position as the dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Idaho, effective Feb. 1, 2016.
“Steve is an exceptionally strong researcher and teacher and has considerable administrative experience,” said Parrella, who served as chair from 1991-1999 and from 2009-2015. “I am confident he will continue to move the nationally ranked Department of Entomology and Nematology forward. It is good to know that I am leaving the department in very good hands.”
“I am pleased to have this opportunity to lead the Department of Entomology and Nematology,” Nadler said. “The department has remarkable faculty, and I look forward to working with them and our dedicated staff and students to advance our research, teaching and extension goals.”
The Department of Entomology and Nematology was recently ranked as the top program of its kind in the United States and has an annual budget of almost $20 million. The department has 21 ladder-rank faculty, 40 graduate students, an undergraduate major with 40 students and oversees the undergraduate animal biology major with more than 300 students.
Nadler joined the UC Davis faculty in 1996 as an associate professor and associate nematologist, advancing to professor in 2001. He was named chair of the Department of Nematology in May 2005 and held that leadership position until June 2011.
Nadler researches the molecular evolutionary biology of free-living and parasitic nematodes and teaches undergraduate classes in parasitology and nematology, and a graduate class in molecular phylogenetic analysis.In 2013 he was awarded the Henry Baldwin Ward Medal by the American Society of Parasitologists; this is the society's highest research honor. His research program is well funded by the National Science Foundation. He is a co-author (with L. S. Roberts and J. Janovy, Jr.) of Foundations of Parasitology (9th edition, McGraw Hill), globally the most widely used undergraduate parasitology textbook.
“Much of my recent evolutionary research,” Nadler said, “has focused on nematodes of the suborder Cephalobina, a group that includes numerous bacterial-feeding species in soil, but also some parasitic taxa hosted by invertebrates. My current NSF research is designed to discover and characterize nematode biodiversity in soil by applying high-throughput sequencing of individual nematodes and metagenetics.”
A native of St. Louis, Mo., Nadler received his bachelor of science degree, cum laude, in biology in 1980 from Missouri State University, Springfield. He holds a master's degree (1982) and a doctorate (1985) in medical parasitology from Louisiana State University Medical Center, New Orleans.
He did postdoctoral research from 1985 to 1986 as a National Institutes of Health research trainee in the Experimental Parasitology Training Program, Center for Parasitology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, followed by two years as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral research associate at Louisiana State University's Museum of Natural Science, Baton Rouge.
Nadler joined the biological sciences faculty at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, as an assistant professor in 1990. He was promoted to associate professor in 1995.
Active in the American Society of Parasitologists (ASP), Nadler served as the organization's president from 2007 to 2008. He is an associate editor of Systematic Parasitology; subject editor of Zookeys (molecular systematics and phylogeny); and a member of the editorial board of Parasitology (British).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Course instructors are Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño; staff research associate Bernardo Niño; facility manager/staff research associate Charley Nye; and graduate student Tricia Bohls. All courses, open to the public, will be taught at the Laidlaw facility, located on Bee Biology Road, west of the UC Davis central campus.
The courses are:
“Planning Ahead for Your First Hive”: A short course on Saturday, Feb. 13 for those with little or no beekeeping experience;
“Working Your Colonies”: A short course on Saturday, Feb. 20 for novice beekeepers, or those who already have a colony and want to develop more skills; and
“Queen-Rearing Techniques” with two separate sessions: Saturday and Sunday, March 12-13 and Saturday and Sunday, March 19-20. This course is for beekeepers who want to learn how to rear their own queens or learn bee breeding.
Capsule Information:
“Planning Ahead for Your First Hives”: This Feb. 13th course will include lectures and hands-on exercises. “This course is perfect for those who have little or no beekeeping experience and who would like to obtain more knowledge and practical skills to move on to the next step of owning and caring for their own honey bee colonies,” said Elina Niño. Lectures will cover honey bee biology, beekeeping equipment, how to start your colony, and maladies of the hive. Hands-on exercises will cover how to build a hive, how to install a package, how to inspect your hive, and how to monitor for varroa mites. Participants will learn what is necessary to get the colony started and keep it healthy and thriving, she said. By the end of the course, participants will be knowledgeable about installing honey bee packages, monitoring their own colonies and maintaining a healthy colony. The $95 registration fee covers the cost of course materials (including a hive tool), lunch, and refreshments.
“Working Your Colonies”: This Feb. 20th course is for novice beekeepers who already have a colony and/or have taken a previous course, and seek to develop their skills. The afternoon will be spent entirely in the apiary with hands-on activities and demonstrations. Lectures will cover: maladies and biology review, products of the hive, and troubleshooting problems in the colony. Hands-on information will encompass colony evaluations, monitoring and managing pests, feeding your colony, and honey extraction.By the end of the course, participants will be knowledgeable about evaluating colonies, solving common beekeeping problems, extracting honey and wax, trapping pollen and propolis, and treating colonies for pests, the instructors said. The $150 registration fee covers the cost of course materials, lunch, and refreshments.
“Queen-Rearing Techniques”: Each of the two sessions, March 12-13 and March 19-20, will include lectures, hands-on exercises. Topics will include honey bee queen biology, basics of selective honey bee breeding programs, various queen-rearing techniques, testing hygienic behavior, and assessing varroa mite levels.
Participants will have the opportunity to learn about and practice multiple methods for queen rearing. “We will go through a step-by-step process for queen rearing via grafting, including setting up cell builders and mating nucs,” Elina Niño said. At the end of the course, participants will be able to check their grafting success and local participants can take home queen cells from the workshop. They also will learn techniques to assess varroa mite loads and to evaluate hygienic behavior. Each session also will include a guided tour of the adjacent Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden that attracts many pollinators and is filled with art from the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Project and entomology/art classes taught by Diane Ullman and Donna Billick.
The $350 registration fee for each queen-rearing session covers the cost of course materials (including a set of grafting equipment: grafting frame with bars, plastic queen cups and a grafting tool), breakfast, lunch and refreshments on the days of the short course.
All participants in the Feb. 13-March 20 courses should bring their own bee suits or veils. They are also responsible for obtaining their own lodging. See map for directions. For more information, contact Bernardo Niño at elninobeelab@gmail.com or call 530-380-BUZZ (2899).
The Niño lab website is at http://elninobeelab.ucdavis.edu/, and the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/elninolab/. The bi-monthly apiculture newsletter, written by Elina Niño, is online.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Her poster, “Estimating Age Structure of Wild Anopheles Populations Using the Captive Cohort Method,” won her a $50 check and certificate.
Kurniawan is seeking her master's degree in entomology. She is advised by two major professors, Associate Dean Edwin Lewis of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and molecular biologist Shirley Luckhart, professor, UC Davis Department of Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Medicine. Luckhart is a graduate student advisor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology and also co-directs the Center for Vectorborne Diseases.
Another advisor is distinguished professor James R. Carey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who serves on her thesis committee.
Also working with Kurniawan on the poster project was staff research associate Kong Cheung of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
Kurniawan recently won a 2015 William Hazeltime Memorial Research Fellowship Award to support her research. Of her work, she says: “I am adapting methods for estimating age structure of Anopheles mosquito populations using the captive cohort method developed by Dr. James Carey. It is a potentially inexpensive and practical alternative for real-time surveillance of mosquito populations. I currently am testing this method on local populations of Anopheles freeborni from Sutter and Butte County rice fields.”
Kurniawan became interested in medical entomology in middle school after contracting dengue on a trip to Indonesia to visit relatives. “No one in America knew about this disease, not even my pediatrician,” she recalled. “This made me interested in vector-borne diseases and mosquitoes.”
A lifelong resident of California and an alumnus of UC Davis, Kurniawan received her bachelor's degree in animal biology with a minor in medical and veterinary entomology.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Bohart Museum's gift shop includes a variety of gifts, including jewelry, t-shirts, posters, notecards, insect-collecting equipment, and new and used books.
The EGSA is offering its newest line of t-shirts, a design featuring a long-legged wasp (new species!) on a penny-farthing and other favorites, all created by graduate students or undergraduate students affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Here's what's available at the Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane.
- Earrings and necklaces (with motifs of bees, dragonflies, moths, butterflies and other insects)
- T--shirts for babies, children and adults (walking sticks, monarch butterflies, beetles, dragonflies, dogface butterflies and the museum logo)
- Insect candy (lollipops with either crickets and scorpions, and chocolate-covered scorpions)
- Insect-themed food, Chapul bars made with cricket flour, and flavored mealworms and crickets
- Insect collecting equipment: bug carriers, nets, pins, boxes, collecting kits
- Plastic insect toys and stuffed animals (mosquito, praying mantis, bed bug and others)
- Handmade redwood insect storage boxes by Bohart Museum associate Jeff Smith
- Posters (Central Valley butterflies, dragonflies of California, dogface butterfly), prints of selected museum specimens
- Books by museum-associated authors:
The Story of the Dogface Butterfly (Fran Keller, Greg Kareofelas and Laine Bauer), Insects and Gardens Insects and Gardens: In Pursuit of a Garden Ecology (Eric Grissell), Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (co-authored by Robbin Thorp), California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (co-authored by Robbin Thorp), Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento Region (Art Shapiro), Butterfly Wish (Steve Stoddard, pen name S.S. Dudley), and multiple dragonfly books by Kathy Biggs. - Notecards of bees and other pollinators by Kathy Keatley Garvey and Mary Foley Benson's wasp and caterpillar art
- Bohart logos (youth t-shirts, stickers and patches
- Used books
- Gift memberships
- Naming of insect species
“I wanted an insect that would be able to put its abdomen on the seat and have long enough legs to reach the pedals,” she said. She solved the dilemma by creating a “new species” of wasp and drawing the majority of votes from faculty, staff and students to win the annual contest. The result: “Hymenoptera on Bicycle.”
“I love the new design and think it translated very well on the t-shirts,” said EGSA treasurer and entomology graduate student Cindy Preto of the Frank Zalom lab. “ I expect it to be a great seller.”
It can be ordered in unisex heather navy with white lettering ($15 for small, medium, large, extra large and 2x); youth navy with white print ($15 for small, medium and large); and women's cut, heather red with light yellow print ($17 for small, medium and large).
The t-shirts from years past, all favorites, include "The Beetles" (reminiscent of The Beatles' Abbey Road album), a weevil (See no weevil, hear no weevil, speak no weevil), a dung beetle, honey bee and comb, and a "wanna bee."
Among the other favorites is "Entomology's Most Wanted." Former graduate students Nicholas Herold and Emily Bzydk featured "bug shots" (a take-off of "mug shots") of the malaria mosquito (Anopheles gambiae), the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) bed bug, (Cimex lecturalius), and the housefly (Musca domestica).
Another gift could be for a beekeeper. Extension apiculturist Elina Niño and staff research associates Bernardo Niño and Charley Nye and graduate student Tricia Bohls are teaching beekeeping classes and those who wish to surprise a beekeeper or a prospective beekeeper with a gift—a workshop—can do so. Check out the list of courses.
The Honey and Pollination Center, directed by Amina Harris, also has a variety of gift items, including notecards and honey. This just in: orange blossom honey. Her email is aharris@ucdavis.edu
And if you want a new insect species named for you, contact the Bohart Museum of Entomology: Lynn Kimsey at lskimsey@ucdavis.edu or Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Jacobs will discuss her newly published book, “Jonas Salk: a Life,” which chronicles the life of whom she describes as “one of America's most beloved and decorated scientific heroes.”
The LASER event, to be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in Room 3001 of the Plant and Environmental Sciences Building, will feature four speakers from the arts and sciences, who will present 20-minute talks on several disciplines, including medicine, visual art and astrophysics.
The event is free and open to the public. It is affiliated with the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion, co-founded by entomologist/artist Diane Ullman, professor of entomology at UC Davis, and self-described rock artist Donna Billick.
Jacobs, who currently cares for U.S. military cancer patients at the Palo Alto Veterans Medical Center, is the Ben and A. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine (emeritus) at Stanford University. A native of Kingsport, Tenn., she studied medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. As a professor at Stanford University, she engaged in teaching, cancer research, and patient care. She received numerous awards for excellence in patient care and teaching, as well as the Distinguished Alumni Award from Washington University.
LASER organizer Anna Davidson serves as the moderator. She received her doctorate in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences and is currently a master of fine arts student at UC Davis.
Other speakers, all from the local or Bay Area, are:
8:10-8:35 p.m.: Rachel Clarke, artist and educator teaching new media art at California State University, Sacramento, will speak on “Merging Spaces,” about her latest art work, which combines physical and virtual modes of making
8:35-9 p.m.: Andreas Albrecht, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Physics, will speak on “What Is Time.” He is a leading theoretical physicist who specializes in understanding the origins of the universe will be talking about “time.”
In his origami talk, Lang says he will discuss the techniques used in mathematical origami design, which range from the abstruse to the highly approachable. “I will describe the geometric concepts led to the solution of a broad class of origami folding problems – specifically, the problem of efficiently folding a shape with an arbitrary number and arrangement of flaps.”
Lang holds a doctorate in applied physics from California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and during his work at NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Spectra Diode Laboratories, and JDS Uniphase, authored or co-authored more than 100 papers and 50 patents in lasers and optoelectronics as well as authoring, co-authoring, or editing 14 books and a CD-ROM on origami.
Clarke's work involves video and animation, installation, augmented reality and experimental 3D, and has been shown in galleries, museums, new media art festivals and film screenings nationally and internationally.
Professor Albrecht says that “Time is a central part of everyday life, yet it can still seem very mysterious.” He will discuss time from a physicist's point of view “in a way that takes us from every day experiences to deep questions about the cosmos.” He is a member of the new Center for Quantum Mathematics and Physics at UC Davis.
Related Links:
For more information on the program, see
https://www.facebook.com/events/1732840033613610/
For directions:
http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/plantsciences/visitors/map.htm
Contact information:
Anna Davidson: adavidson@ucdavis.edu
