- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Labudio is located in Room 128 of the Environmental Horticulture Building, 200 Arboretum Drive, UC Davis.
The public is invited. "Please bring a t-shirt if you'd like to screen print one of our designs on it, too," they said. "Kids can make shirts, too. The event will be indoor/outdoor, so please dress accordingly." No reservations are necessary.
"The students were each assigned an insect species in decline or moving about the planet and becoming invasive in new habitats," said Meineke, an urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor. "The insects students were assigned are among those most impacted by humans, and students were given an opportunity to re-envision how people might interact more gently and intentionally with insects, our small, yet consequential co-inhabitants."
"We are so proud of how the students interacted with this topic," Meineke said. "They were charged with researching their insects and turning that research into designs that could be screen printed on watercolor paper, ceramic tiles to be installed in Briggs 122, and fabric. Their designs are nothing short of spectacular!"
UC Davis distinguished professor Diane Ullman, an artist and entomologist, "helped immensely," said Meineke, adding that she wasn't "an official co-teacher but she essentially acted as one."
Meineke was recently named one of the 12 UC Davis recipients of the prestigious Hellman Fellowships, an annual program supporting the research of early-career faculty. Her project, “Assessing Preservation of Chemical Compounds in Pressed Plants," focuses on whether herbarium specimens collected over hundreds of years harbor chemical compounds that reveal mechanisms responsible for changing insect-plant interactions.
Meineke was among the scholars and artists who helped spearhead the newly created Harvard Museum of Natural History's “In Search of Thoreau's Flowers: An Exploration of Change and Loss," hailed as an examination of the natural world and climate change at the intersections of science, art and history. She helped launch the project in 2017 when she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard University Herbaria. The 648 plant specimens that Henry David Thoreau donated to the museum form the foundation of the exhibit. It opened to the public May 14.
A native of Greenville, N.C., Meineke joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology on March 1, 2020, from the Harvard University Herbaria. As a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow, she studied how urbanization and climate change have affected plant-insect relationships worldwide over the past 100-plus years.
She received her bachelor of science degree in environmental science, with a minor in biology, in 2008 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She obtained her doctorate in entomology in 2016 from North Carolina State University.
Professor Ullman, a celebrated teacher, artist and researcher, is the 2014 recipient of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) National Excellence in Teaching Award and the UC Davis Academic Senate's 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award for undergraduate teaching. She is a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2014) and the ESA (2011).
When she was singled out for the UC Davis Academic Senate Award, her nominators praised her as providing "superb teaching and mentoring for many years, not only in the Department of Entomology and Nematology but as a leader in the Science and Society program. She has brought art-science fusion alive in innovative ways. Her nominees and students rave about her deep dedication, care, and knowledge in all teaching interactions, as well as her overall commitment to student success. One student nominee summed it up: "My experience in her course last spring was one that lifted my spirits, enriched my education, and strengthened my love for art and science during a time when it was difficult to feel positive about anything.”
Ullman's research encompasses insect/virus/plant interactions and development of management strategies for insect-transmitted plant pathogens. She has worked with many insect vector species (thrips, aphids, whiteflies, leafhoppers, mealybugs) and the plant pathogens they transmit, including viruses, phytoplasma and bacteria.
One of her latest art projects--with colleagues, UC Davis students and community members--is the Sonoran Dreams Art Project in the Garden Apartments of the University Retirement Community, Davis. Handmade ceramic tiles depicting the flora, fauna and symbols of the Sonoran Desert surround the elevator.
Ullman received her bachelor of science degree in horticulture from the University of Arizona and her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1985. She joined the UC Davis faculty in 1991 after serving as an associate professor of entomology at the University of Hawaii. Her credentials include: chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, 2004-2005; associate dean for undergraduate academic programs for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, 2005 to 2014; and co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, launched in September 2006.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Bohart Museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. The event is free and family friendly.
Among artists represented will be UC Davis graduate student Srdan Tunic; undergraduate students Allen Chew, Francisco Basso and Brittany Kohler; and UC Davis alumna Megan Ma; plus the work of the late scientific illustrator Mary Foley Benson (1905-1992), who worked for the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture, the Smithsonian before retiring and moving to Davis. She also worked for UC Davis entomologists.
Tunic, a UC Davis candidate for a master's degree in art history, will present a seminar on Benson from 11 a.m. to noon, Oct. 15, in Room 1010 of the TLC Teaching and Learning Complex, 482 Hutchison Drive. (See separate news story on Tunic and see research story on Mary Foley Benson by forest entomologist Malcolm Furniss)
"I will focus on the visual material, and start by saying a few words about the museum, and then talk about Mary's life and art chronologically, paying special attention to her work at UC Davis," Tunic said. "At some point I will briefly touch on scientific illustration and how artists make this sort of work, and near the end, mention other illustrators I encountered during this process, and wrap up motivating people to dive into their local collections."
The family arts-and-crafts activity at the open house will be to "create your own Pokemon card," said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. Also planned: eating insects, creating gall ghosts (from oak galls), learning about cochineal dyes, and showing off insect tattoos.
"We would love to have folks come and show off their insect tattoos," Kimsey said.
The UC Davis museum, founded in 1946 by noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007), is dedicated to teaching, research and service. It is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens. The collection is now the seventh largest in North America and includes terrestrial and fresh water arthropods. The museum is also home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity of California's deserts, mountains, coast, and the Great Central Valley. In addition, the Bohart features a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas) and an insect-themed gift shop, stocked with T-shirts, hoodies, jewelry, posters, books and insect-collecting equipment.
The Bohart is open to the public year-around (except for holidays) Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m. It is closed to the public on Friday to enable research activities. Admission is free. For more information, access the website or contact the museum at bmuseum@udavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Then you'll want to attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on "Insects, Art and Culture" from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 15 on the UC Davis campus.
The Bohart Museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. The event is free and family friendly.
Among artists represented will be UC Davis graduate student Srdan Tunic; UC Davis undergraduate students Allen Chew, Francisco Basso and Brittany Kohler; and UC Davis alumna Megan Ma; plus the work of the late scientific illustrator Mary Foley Benson (1905-1992), employed by the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture, the Smithsonian before retiring and moving to Davis. She also did illustrations for several UC Davis entomologists.
Tunic, a UC Davis candidate for a master's degree in art history, will present a seminar on Benson from 11 a.m. to noon, Oct. 15, in Room 1010 of the TLC Teaching and Learning Complex, 482 Hutchison Drive. (See research story on Mary Foley Benson by forest entomologist Malcolm Furniss)
The family arts-and-crafts activity at the open house will be to "create your own Pokemon card," said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. Also planned: eating insects, creating gall ghosts (from oak galls), learning about cochineal dyes, and showing off insect tattoos.
"We would love to have folks come and show off their insect tattoos," Kimsey said.
The UC Davis museum, founded in 1946 by noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007), is dedicated to teaching, research and service. It is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens. The collection is now the seventh largest in North America and includes terrestrial and fresh water arthropods. The museum is also home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity of California's deserts, mountains, coast, and the Great Central Valley. In addition, the Bohart features a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas) and an insect-themed gift shop, stocked with T-shirts, hoodies, jewelry, posters, books and insect-collecting equipment.
The Bohart is open to the public year-around (except for holidays) Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m. It is closed to the public on Friday to enable research activities. Admission is free. For more information, access the website or contact the museum at bmuseum@udavis.edu.
- Author: UC Riverside byTess Eyrich
Marlen Ríos-Hernández is a proud pioneer of a research technique she refers to as “intellectual dumpster diving.” By that, she means she studies trash — but probably not the kind you'd expect.
A Southern California native, Ríos-Hernández is a doctoral candidate in the ethnic studies department at the University of California, Riverside. Before arriving at UCR, she trained as a musicologist — “basically a music historian,” she explained.
As a researcher of punk music, the “trash” she sifts through is more akin to countercultural relics that have been discarded or ignored by traditional archivists. Through her work, she hopes to shed light on some of punk's early pioneers, many of whom have gone overlooked by mainstream chroniclers of the genre who have historically portrayed it as white and male-dominated.
“Punk has always been diverse,” Ríos-Hernández said. “Women, people of color, and queer-identifying people have been part of punk movements across time, and as a punk fan myself, I think it's important to recognize that representation. My work is a way of asking, ‘Who carries the weight of the things that we love?'”
In particular, her dissertation charts the growth of punk scenes in Los Angeles, Mexico, and Latin America from the late 1970s to the mid-2000s. The latter period, she said, holds personal significance for her because it was when she experienced her own coming of age as a punk fan and activist under the George W. Bush administration.
“There was a huge anti-war movement going on at the time, and my brother had been deployed to Iraq,” Ríos-Hernández said. “I got involved in the punk scene in South Gate with many of my friends who came from similar backgrounds — first-generation students, mixed-status families. Punk helped us during what was an especially difficult and terrifying time to be an immigrant or come from a mixed-status family in America.”
The punk scene quickly became both her preferred creative outlet and port of entry to social justice work. Bands like the Casualties, the Germs, and the Devotchkas were among her original favorites, but it wasn't until she found Alice Bag — a Chicana pillar of the Hollywood punk scene — that Ríos-Hernández's scholarly research began to take shape.
This year, Ríos-Hernández will work to complete her studies at UC Riverside as the recipient of a $20,000 dissertation fellowship from the American Association of University Women. Designed to tackle some of the barriers women face in education, the association's dissertation fellowship program is dual-sided, enabling recipients to pursue both academic work and community projects that empower women and girls.
Along with finishing her dissertation, the fellowship will allow Ríos-Hernández to continue her work as a mentor for other first-generation humanities students who want to pursue graduate school. She also recently started as a staffer at the Chicano Student Programs office, where she serves as its graduate student events and programs coordinator.
As a researcher, she said, one of the highlights of her current work involves leading students from a variety of arts and humanities departments through interactive, punk-inspired lectures. One tackles a dance style called the pogo — think of it as a less aggressive, more equitable predecessor to moshing — which Ríos-Hernández detailed in an essay recently accepted for publication in “The Oxford Handbook of Punk Rock.”
Investigating so-called “trash” like the pogo and its transformation into moshing is part of an effort to encourage students to question why things are remembered the way that they are. And for those who want to continue their education in punk, Ríos-Hernández has plenty of resources to recommend, beginning with Bag's memoir, “Violence Girl,” and the 1981 documentary film “The Decline of Western Civilization.”
“Recordings of many L.A. punk bands are very rare, but what's happening now is that the punk elders who are still with us are putting their recordings on the internet or writing their memoirs,” Ríos-Hernández said. “It's a really vibrant time to be listening to what's coming out about the L.A. punk community.”
The renaissance of sorts has been a boon for her research. Still, Ríos-Hernández admitted, she sometimes feels torn between her more scholarly pursuits and the age-old punk mentality that places a premium on resisting conformity.
“It's been really interesting writing about punk music as a graduate student and trying to make a career out of it, because punk traditionally goes against being part of the system,” she said. “But maybe because I've gotten this far, I feel like I have a responsibility to do this work right — a responsibility both to fans of punk and to the people who made this music in the early days and continue to make it now.”
Likewise, Ríos-Hernández added, she feels a profound responsibility to UC Riverside, the place she affectionately calls “the unsung hero of the UC system.”
“I wouldn't trade my time here for the world,” she said. “I fully intend to come back after I graduate — that's my dream.”
Source: Published originally on news.ucr.edu A Ph.D. in punk? Only at UC Riverside, by Tess Eyrich, October 15th, 2018.
/span>- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Art is an expression of creativity, a conveyance of beauty, and for naturalists, it is a way to process, remember and interpret nature.
Many branches of nature art are popular, such as photography, painting and sketching. The UC California Naturalist Regional Rendezvous in October introduced an old but uncommon method for documenting natural objects – cyanotype.
At the CalNat Rendezvous at the Pepperwood Preserve, Santa Rosa artist Jessica Layton taught the cyanotype process to volunteers certified by the UC California Naturalist program, giving them a new tool to use in educating and engaging children and adults in conservation organizations they work with around the state.
The cyanotype process begins by mixing two chemicals - ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide – to create the blue photo reactive solution. The chemicals may be purchased at art stores and online by searching for cyanotype solutions.
Once blended, the chemicals are painted on paper or cotton cloth and allowed to dry. Leaves, grasses, seeds, pine cones, flowers, stones – any number of natural objects collected outside may be artfully arranged on the blue background and, if needed, held in place with a pane of glass.
The project is then set out in bright sunlight for 5 to 7 minutes, brought back inside to be washed in clean water and allowed to dry. The areas of the paper or cloth exposed to the sun are a radiant lapis blue; the areas that were shaded by the natural objects appear in silhouette.
“I have come to appreciate art as a way to improve observation skills and deepen an appreciation for nature,” Merenlender said. “We offered this session to our volunteers for them to improve their capacity and become better naturalists.”