- (Focus Area) Health
The Nutrition Policy Institute, founded in 2014, is celebrating a decade of impactful research. The latest episode of the Spanish-language podcast, Charla y Café al mediodía, features NPI senior researcher Ron Strochlic discussing the Institute's history and achievements. The podcast highlights NPI's origins at the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Weight and Health and its significant research on sugar-sweetened beverage taxes, the CalFresh Market Match program, and improving access to drinking water in schools and nutritious food in California prisons. Former NPI student fellow, Anna Rios, shared how the NPI Student Fellowship supported her career development. Rios is now a Harvard Medical School-trained neuroscientist. The NPI Student Fellowship, developed in honor of NPI's founding co-director Patricia Crawford, was designed to diversify and bring more equity to the field of public health nutrition, offering a unique mentoring and training experience in applied research. The podcast, produced by Ricardo Vela from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, News and Outreach in Spanish, is available online in both video and audio. In honor of NPI's anniversary, donations to the NPI Student Fellowship are encouraged. Contributions made by June 30, 2024, will be matched up to $10,000 by an anonymous donor.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ricardo Vela, manager of UC ANR News and Information Outreach in Spanish (NOS), won the ACE 2024 Rising Star Award, an annual award that "honors communicators, instructors and researchers who demonstrate exceptional leadership and technical skills in their communication field, to their institution, and service to ACE."
Five other UC ANR communicators won either a gold (first place), silver (second place), or a bronze (third place) award.
- A trio from UC ANR Strategic Communications--Michael Hsu, senior public information representative; Ethan Ireland, senior videographer; and Evett Kilmartin, photographer--teamed to win a silver award for their video, “Farm-to-Corrections Project."
- Strategic Communications' social media strategist Doralicia Garay won a bronze award for her entry, “Improving Lives in California” in the category, social media organic campaign.
- Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist for the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and author of the Bug Squad blog on the UC ANR site, won a gold award for “best feature photo."
They will receive their awards at the ACE conference, scheduled June 23-25 in Salt Lake City Utah. The theme: “Big Ideas Start Here.”
Ricardo Vela
Ricardo Vela is a 35-year, two-time Emmy-winning broadcast journalism professional, as noted on the ACE site. As program manager of NOS, he supervises a Spanish-language expert team that disseminates news and research about agriculture, nutrition, and natural resources to Spanish-speaking communities across California. Vela is “an advocate for Latino and other ethnic groups, promoting their contributions to society and creating for the first time, events for the UC ANR community to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month and Cesar Chavez Day.”
Before joining UC ANR, Vela worked as a national news correspondent for Univision and CNN in Texas and Los Angeles. He started his journalism career at the Chicago Tribune and Univision in Chicago, Ill. While in Chicago, he collaborated with several Latino community organizations, always promoting equity and inclusion. He served as Univision's main news anchor in San Diego for 17 years and hosted a morning talk radio show,“Voces Hispanas,” for 10 years. His career includes serving as news director and anchor at Entravisión (a Univisión affiliate) in Palm Springs and as a news anchor at Telemundo in El Paso, Texas. In 2006, Hispanic Magazine listed him as among the 100 most influential Latinos in the country.
UC ANR Vice President Glenda Humiston appointed Vela as a founding member of the UC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee to serve a three-year term.
The ACE Rising Star Award memorializes Frank Jeter (1891-1955), a pioneering ACE member from North Carolina who made significant contributions to the communication field and to ACE.
Michael Hsu, Ethan Ireland and Evett Kilmartin
The Hsu-Ireland-Kilmartin team produced a video featuring UC ANR's Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI) and its unique partnership with Impact Justice, ChangeLab Solutions, Spork, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDRC). Last July they launched the "Farm-to-Corrections Harvest of the Month" project, which brings fresh, specialty produce into California prisons “to improve the diets of the residents, as well as improve their overall health and well-being.” Impact Justice is a prison reform organization, ChangeLab Solutions is a health equity nonprofit, and Spork is a regional food hub.
The video, Hsu said, aims to raise awareness and build support for the project. He cited its many wins:
- Opens major untapped market for California growers and producers (especially small farmers)
- Demonstrates a way for CDCR to meet requirements for in-state sourcing of food
- Provides healthier food for residents of the correctional facilities, while introducing new produce and nutrition education opportunities that can help them live better lives while they are in prison and after they return to their communities.
Hsu conducted the interviews and wrote the script; Ireland shot and edited the video; and Kilmartin contributed photos. Some images were taken in the California Department of Corrections, California State Prison, Solano (Vacaville). (See the news story, "Farm-to-Corrections' Project Provides Fresh Produce to People in Prison, Boosts California Growers.")
Doralicia Garay
"The campaign's strategic emphasis on showcasing employees within the narrative of research efforts enhances the UC ANR brand identity and positions the organization as a collaborative pioneer in innovation," Garay wrote. "This comprehensive approach leverages the power of social media to extend reach, foster engagement, and effectively cater to our online community."
Among those featured in "Improving Lives in California:" entomologist Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor of Cooperative Extension, and a member of the faculty of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Kathy Keatley Garvey
Kathy Keatley Garvey, a journalist formerly with UC ANR before joining the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, submitted an image of a honey bee buzzing over a zinnia. Her entry, “Celebrating the Honey Bee," won the feature photo category, for "one image that effectively tells a story."
"The purpose of this photo was to celebrate the honey bee by capturing an image of a pollen-packing worker bee in flight over a bright flower," wrote Garvey. Her gear: a Nikon D500 with a 105mm lens. Settings: 1/4000 of a second (to freeze the action), ISO 1000, and f-stop 6.3. She sought to showcase "the amazing color: the bright red zinnia and the orange pollen;" the bee's speed (deliberately blurring the wings); and "to emphasize that foraging honey bees are incredible workers."
"That is one huge ball of pollen that she'll take back to her colony," Garvey wrote. Feedspot, which ranks blogs by traffic, social media followers and freshness, ranks her Bug Squad blog as the No. 4 bug blog in the world, Garvey has written the blog every night, Monday through Friday, since Aug. 6, 2008.
Communication Professionals
ACE, headquartered in Morton Grove, Ill., describes it members as "communication faculty and professionals at public and land-grant universities throughout the United States and in similar institutions in other nations.We are communication professionals at local, state and federal agencies; corporations and nonprofit organizations; and agriculture- and natural resources-focused international research centers."
Its members include "writers, editors, graphic designers, webmasters, video producers, information technologists, photographers, administrators, researchers, faculty members and others in the communications field. We plan, prepare and disseminate research results and Extension educational materials. We distribute research-based information to scientists and technicians, and practical, problem-solving information to people who put it to work: farmers, families, foresters, food processors, ranchers, homemakers, news media, youth, marine businesses, businesses and many others."
- Author: Brianna Aguayo Villalon
- Editor: Monica Daniela Zuercher
- Editor: Wendi Gosliner
- Editor: Lorrene D Ritchie
School meals have been shown to be the healthiest source of food for US students on average and have been associated with multiple benefits to students. However, not all students eat school meals, even if they are eligible for free or reduced-price meals based on their family income. This study examined the association between parent perspectives about school meals and student meal participation during the school year 2021-22 in the context of the California Universal School Meals policy. NPI researchers surveyed 1,110 parents of California K-12 students and identified three groups of parental perceptions: positive perceptions (e.g. liking school meals and thinking that they are tasty and healthy), perceived benefits to families (e.g. school meals save families money, time, and stress), and negative perceptions (e.g. concerns about the amount of sugar in school meals and stigma). More positive parental perceptions about school meals and their benefits to families were associated with greater student meal participation, while more negative parental perceptions were associated with reduced student participation in school meals. Overall, study results emphasize that parent perceptions of school meals may affect student participation in school meal programs and that effective communication with parents to ensure parents are familiar with the healthfulness and quality of school meals may be critical for increasing meal participation rates. A podcast interview with researcher Monica Zuercher and a press release were published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, further explaining the research study findings. The research study was led by NPI researchers Monica Zuercher, Christina Hecht, Kenneth Hecht, Dania Orta-Aleman, Anisha Patel, Lorrene Ritchie, and Wendi Gosliner, as well as researchers Juliana Cohen, Deborah Olarte, and Leah Chapman with Merrimack College, Margaret Read with Partnership for a Healthier America, and Marlene Schwartz with the University of Connecticut.
The Nutrition Policy Institute, founded in 2014, is celebrating ten years of high-impact research. A new video in Spanish highlight's NPI's accomplishments and contributions to public health in California related to universal school meals, improving the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (commonly known as WIC), provide fresh food in correctional facilities, improving quality and access to drinking water in schools and child care, and promoting access to fresh produce for families in need by promoting CalFresh (nationally known as SNAP) benefit use at farmers Markets. The video also highlight's the NPI Student Fellowship which aims to foster diversity in the next generation of public health nutrition leaders. The Spanish video description is below:
UC ANR y NPI Celebran una década de impacto en la comunidad
Únete a nosotros para celebrar una década de logros del Instituto de Políticas de Nutrición (NPI). Descubre cómo nuestras iniciativas han transformado la salud pública en California:
- Comidas Escolares para Todos: Asegurando que cada niño tenga acceso a comidas nutritivas en la escuela.
- Mejoras al Programa WIC: Optimizando el apoyo nutricional para mujeres y niños de bajos ingresos.
- De la Granja a las Correccionales: Proporcionando alimentos frescos en instalaciones correccionales.
- Beca Estudiantil NPI: Fomentando la próxima generación de líderes en nutrición pública.
- Agua Potable en Escuelas: Garantizando la calidad del agua para una mejor salud infantil.
- Beneficios de CalFresh en Mercados de Agricultores: Promoviendo el acceso a productos frescos para familias necesitadas.
Tu apoyo es fundamental para continuar nuestra misión. Contribuye hoy y ayúdanos a seguir mejorando la nutrición en California.
The video, developed by the University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resource's News and Outreach in Spanish, and a complementary news story, "Instituto de Políticas de Nutrición: 10 años de hacer que las opciones saludables sean más accesibles para todos," are available online.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
That was the consensus at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house when attendees tried to locate the queen in the bee observation hive at a table staffed by UC Davis graduate student Richard Martinez of the Elina Lastro Niño lab, Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Martinez purposefully didn't mark the queen.
"Most kids thought the queen was going to be marked--common beekeeping practice--but mine wasn't, so they thought that was unfair," Martinez quipped. "Only one kid was able to find the queen. And it was toward the end of the event. The queen was laying an egg when we found her."
The drones, the males, also drew avid interest.
"After I mentioned the hive has drones, what i referred to as 'the boys'--it helps kids understand their role in the hive--they were fascinated with finding the drones, which they did."
Most kids, however, confused drones for the queen, Martinez said.
Attendees, both adults and youth, delighted in trying on the beekeeper veils and suits, and examining the hive tools and other apiary equipment.
"A lot of the kids asked what bees do inside the hive," Martinez said. "So I went through my list of roles honey bees carry out. One family was super invested in the science behind honey bee research, particularly nutrition, which is what I study."
"It was a pretty fun event," he said.
The queen bee, the largest bee in the colony, has a long, narrow, pointed abdomen, and shorter wings than the worker bee. The worker has a rounded abdomen and wings that extend almost to the end of the abdomen. The drone, stout in body, has what some call "wrap around eyes."
The Bohart Museum open house, held May 19 not only featured honey bees (managed bees) but wild bees. (More images pending)
Martinez, a master's student, studies honey bee health, specializing in nutrition, in the lab of E. L. Niño, associate professor of Cooperative Extension, and a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty.
Martinez recently helped staffed the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) t-shirt booth at Briggs Hall during the 110th annual UC Davis Picnic Day, where he and fellow graduate students wore "Bugbie" shirts. The t-shirt, designed by Marielle Hansel Friedman, a second-year doctoral student in the lab of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, features a rosy maple moth, Dryocampa rubicunda. (EGSA offers a variety of t-shirts on its sales website at https://ucdavisentgrad.square.site/.)
The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis, houses a global collection of eight million insects, plus a live petting zoo, and a gift shop. Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, directs the museum. He also serves as president-elect of the American Arachnological Society.
The next open houses are set for
- Saturday, July 20: "Moth Night at the Museum," 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.
- Saturday, Sept. 28: "Museum ABCs: Arthropods Bohart, and Collecting," 1 to 4:30 p.m.
All open houses are free and family friendly; parking is also free on weekends.
Summer public walk-in hours are on Tuesdays, June 17-Aug. 27 from 9 a.m. to noon, and from 1 to 4 p.m. The museum will be closed to the general public from Sept. 1-22.
For more information, access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.