- Author: Pamela Kan-Rice
Applications are being accepted through January 31, 2018, from individuals who wish to be considered for the UC Cooperative Extension Presidential Chair for California Grown Rice.
Through a funding partnership between the California Rice Research Board and the UC Presidential Endowment program, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources has established a $1 million UC Cooperative Extension Presidential Chair for California Grown Rice. The endowed chair will provide a UCCE scientist a dedicated source of funds to support scholarly activities focused on improvement of California rice production and quality. The Chair will be awarded by UC ANR to a distinguished UC Cooperative Extension specialist or advisor currently working in the area of California-grown rice research.
Through a competitive selection process, a Chair will be selected to hold a five-year term. Chair holder Applicants for the UCCE Presidential Chair for California Grown Rice must be a UC Cooperative Extension advisor or specialist currently working in the area of California-grown rice research.
Application and selection details, including timeline and submission guidelines, are online at http://ucanr.edu/sites/anrstaff/files/275834.pdf.
View or leave comments for ANR Leadership at http://ucanr.edu/sites/ANRUpdate/Comments.
This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Alumni News
Professor Bryony Bonning of Iowa State University, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Bruce Hammock lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, has accepted an endowed chair position at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
Effective in February, she will be the Eminent Scholar (Davies, Fischer and Eckes Endowed Chair), in the University of Florida's Department of Entomology and Nematology. The position will encompass both research (80 percent, Florida Agricultural Experiment Station) and teaching (20 percent, Entomology and Nematology Department, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences). The endowed chair position currently includes an endowment of $2.3 million.
Bonning, who joined the ISU faculty 22 years ago, serves as the founding director of the National Science Foundation's Center for Arthropod Management Technologies (CAMTech), and oversees cutting edge research on insect physiology and insect pathology with the goal of developing novel, environmentally benign alternatives to chemical insecticides for insect pest management.
“Bryony is a star in our department,” said distinguished professor Bruce Hammock of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “Bryony and I worked together at the NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology at Oxford and she came back to UC Davis with me as a postdoc.”
“Bryony did amazing work on recombinant baculovirus insecticides working with Susumu Maeda, Sean Duffy and myself,” Hammock said. Another UC Davis connection: Bonning married Jeff Beetham, a Ph.D. student (biochemistry) in the Hammock lab; he recently retired from a faculty position in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University.
“Dr. Bonning brings an outstanding record of accomplishment and cooperation, and we are confident she will work tirelessly to develop solutions for citrus pest management,” said Blair Siegfried, chair of the UF/IFAS entomology and nematology department in a news release. “Her combined experience and achievements make her ideally suited and deserving of the position.”
A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Bonning was elected a fellow of the Entomological Society of America in 2013 and received the Nan-Yao Su Award for Innovation and Creativity in Entomology that same year. She is the 2016 recipient of Iowa State University Outstanding Achievement in Research Award.
The author of more than 110 papers in high-impact journals, Bonning holds five patents related to insect control technologies. She is developing novel methods for controlling the Asian citrus psyllid, the vector of citrus greening.
Bonning received her bachelor of science degree in zoology from the University of Durham, UK and her doctorate in entomology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, UK. She went on to postdoctoral appointments at the Natural Environment Research Council Institute of Virology in Oxford, UK and at UC Davis.