- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Kimsey will receive the award at the 98th annual PBESA meeting, set for April 6-9 at the Marriott University Park, Tucson, Ariz. PBESA covers 11 western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming), parts of Canada and Mexico and seven U.S. territories.
In nominating her for the award, her colleagues noted that Kimsey excels at research, teaching, and public service. “There are not many entomologists who can match her expertise, general knowledge, curiosity, and enthusiasm about insects, discovered and undiscovered, or her specific knowledge about the aculeate wasp families, Chrysididae and Tiphiidae,” they pointed out in the nomination package. Chrysidids affect predator and pollinator populations, and tiphiids directly affect immature populations of Japanese beetles and 10-lined June beetles.
Quentin Wheeler, president of the College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, praised her as a "widely recognized as a taxonomist of high international stature" who has "achieved notable excellence in systematics, evolution and biodiversity."
Known fondly by her colleagues as “The Wasp Woman,” Kimsey is one of only a few scientists in the world who can identify chrysidid or tiphiid wasps to species. Species discovery is a larger part of her research because only an estimated 60 percent of these species are known. To date, Kimsey has named 250 new species and 17 new genera.
Kimsey focuses her research on four areas of systematics: monography and species discovery, phylogeny and biogeography. Most of her research projects are long-term, requiring the examination of large numbers of museum specimens, development and analysis of data sets, field collecting, and location and analysis of older literature.
Kimsey's primary research focuses on resolving global patterns of evolution in the wasp family Tiphiidae, which includes eight subfamilies. A second project is to understand the insect diversity of California and how it fits into local and global patterns of biodiversity. In 2001 Kimsey brought the California Insect Survey (CIS) to UC Davis, and is now editor of the Bulletin of the California Insect Survey. Her more than 100 peer-reviewed publications include books on chrysidid cuckoo wasps of North America and the world. She published one book through this series on “California Cuckoo Wasps in the Family Chrysididae (Hymenoptera)” and is editing a second book on the forensically important flies of California (with Michael Niemela).
Kimsey built the Bohart Museum of Entomology into a world-class museum; today it houses a global collection of nearly eight million insect specimens in its quarters in 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It is the seventh largest insect museum in North America and the home of the California Insect Survey. The museum also is the home to a live “petting zoo” (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks, praying mantids, tarantulas) and a gift shop.
Said ESA Fellow Robert Washino, UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology, former department chair and former associate dean who has known Kimsey for 40 years: “When the existing museum facility became inadequate early in her career, to sustain a dynamic teaching, research and public service program for her as well as her colleagues, she took it upon herself to obtain a major extramural grant from the National Science Foundation that required matching funds from the campus administration--rare indeed!--for relocation and modernization of the museum facilities. This involved the purchase and installation of new ‘state of the art' movable shelves to accommodate and store insect collections that made possible the necessary expansion to the UC Davis insect repository one of the major facilities in the U.S."
Kimsey spearheaded the purchase and installation of new “state of the art” movable shelves to accommodate and store insect collections. The museum is open to the public from Monday through Friday and on many weekends or special open houses. She provides scores of educational activities for the public. The museum draws more than 15,000 children per year to the museum. Another new project is the campuswide UC Davis Biodiversity Day, which involves six biological museum (including the Bohart Museum) opening their doors to the general public on an afternoon in February.
Dr. Kimsey also runs an information service on delusional parasitosis to serve the public and medical community. This information is used as the gold standard by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kimsey received her doctorate in entomology in 1979 from UC Davis and joined the entomology faculty in 1989, after serving as a visiting professor/lecturer at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.
Known for her broad interest in the systematics of insects, not just in one order, family, genus or species, Kimsey is eager to collect new specimens for the museum, her colleagues said. “When she collects, she wants them all,” said Bohart Museum senior scientist and colleague Steve Heydon. “When Lynn goes collecting, she puts up Malaise traps, pan traps, light traps, the whole works, and so the Bohart collection grows in diversity of all the orders instead of just a few.”
Kimsey answers thousands of insect questions a year and is “go-to” person when members of the news media want to know about insects. Among the hundreds of news media interviews: she has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC and National Public Radio, provided information to the TV show, Fear Factor. She s continually featured in metropolitan newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, National Geographic and Sacramento Bee. Kimsey drew international attention in a homicide trial when she identified insects from the grill of a car to specific geographical locations.
Kimsey sparks, inspires and motivates her students in her Entomology 100 and 1001 classes. As one student wrote, “She is a great professor and made the topic very fun. She is very understanding and compassionate.” Another said: “She doesn't make you feel bad for asking dumb questions, she's funny, and even will chat with students for fun. Field trips are really fun, too. Besides, you know you wanna take a class when you get to swing giant bug nets around.”
Kimsey's teaching ranges from undergraduate and graduate level courses to public educational programs for K-12 aged children via the Bohart Museum and specialized training workshops. She teaches a public speaking class for graduate students. She is one of the three founding instructors of the One Minute Entomology course, which involves undergraduates researching and creating a one-minute video on an insect or arthropod.
Kimsey, former vice chair and interim chair of the Department of Entomology, serves as the executive director of the Bohart Museum Society, a community support group for the museum; founder and director of the Center for Biosystematics at UC Davis; and head of informal campus groups, the Association of Biological Collections and Biodiversity Consortium.
Former Kimsey graduate student Michael Niemela, now a senior public health biologist for the Vector –Borne Disease Section, California Department of Public Health, said “Dr. Kimsey's ability to mentor and motivate students has advanced the careers and enriched the professional lives of not only her past and present graduate students, but countless undergraduate students who have interacted with her through lecture or visits to the Bohart Museum of Entomology. Dr. Kimsey has been a prodigious author throughout her career, with 103 refereed publications, 14 limited publications and 44 Bohart Museum Society newsletters. Since 1984, she has been the recipient of 25 grants, most recently for insect surveys in Indonesia and for databasing North American bee collections within a global informatics network. Notable among her accomplishments are her many contributions to the field of insect systematics and evolution. Dr. Kimsey has published an extensive number of papers focusing on insect behavior and biology. However, she is known more for her systematic work. Beginning with her 1974 review of Mellinus wasps, Dr. Kimsey has published at least 70 papers focused on the description of new species, generic reviews or familial phylogenetic revisions.”
