- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Tuesday, Nov. 2 will be a special day of celebration at the annual Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting, being held in the Colorado Convention Center, Denver.
Tuesday is when ESA will honor scores of award winners at its Founders' Memorial Lecture breakfast meeting. The theme of the Oct. 31-Nov. 3 meeting focuses on "Adapt. Advance. Transform."
A tip of the insect net to our UC Davis-affiliated award winners who will be honored Tuesday:
- Honorary Member: Distinguished professor and entomological giant Frank Zalom, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will receive the prestigious Honorary Member award, the highest ESA honor. A past president of ESA (2014) and a 47-year ESA member, he directed the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Program for 16 years, from 1986 to 2002. He is currently the Journal of Economic Entomology editor-in-chief, a position held since 2018. Zalom is the fifth UC Davis scientist to be selected ESA Honorary Member. W. Harry Lange (1912-2004) received the award in 1990; Donald MacLean (1928-2014), the 1984 ESA president, won the award in 1993; Bruce Eldridge in 1996, and John Edman in 2001. “Honorary membership acknowledges those who have served ESA for at least 20 years through significant involvement in the affairs of the society that has reached an extraordinary level,” an ESA spokesperson said. “Candidates for this honor are selected by the ESA Governing Board and then voted on by the ESA membership." (See more on Bug Squad blog)
Frank Zalom - Fellow Award: UC Davis alumnus Kelli Hoover, a professor in the Department of Entomology at Pennsylvania State University (PSU), is internationally recognized for her research on invasive species biology and ecology, especially for the discovery of mechanisms underlying multitrophic interactions between host plants, insects, and insect pathogens or symbionts, ESA announced. She is a member of the Centers for Chemical Ecology and Pollinator Research as well as the Insect Biodiversity Center. Hoover received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1997. Fellows of ESA are individuals who have made outstanding contributions to entomology— via research, teaching, extension, administration, military service, and public engagement and science policy —and whose career accomplishments serve to inspire all entomologists, according to the ESA. (See more on Bug Squad blog.)
Kelli Hoover - Nan-Yao Su Award for Innovation and Creativity in Entomology: UC Davis affiliate Thomas C. Sparks, a retired research fellow at Corteva Agriscience, was the first graduate student of then UC Riverside faculty member Bruce Hammock, who joined the UC Davis faculty in 1980. Hammock is now a distinguished professor who holds a joint appointment with the Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. Sparks holds a doctorate in entomology (1978) from UC Riverside, focusing on insect physiology and toxicology. He is the first scientist from the crop protection industry to receive the Nan-Yao Su Award and the second Hammock lab alumnus to do so.ESA selected Bryony Bonning, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Hammock lab and now a professor at Iowa State University, for the award in 2013. Walter Leal, former chair of the entomology department and now a UC Davis distinguished professor with the UC Davis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, won the award in 2011.(See more on Bug Squad blog)
Thomas Sparks
In other news, 12 UC Davis entomology graduate students presented either a speech or a poster in student competitions today (Monday). Winners will be announced soon. A shout-out to the students: Jill Oberski, Zachary Griebenow, Lacie Newton. Lindsey Mack, Danielle Rutkowski, Maureen Page, Xavier Zahnle, Erin Taylor. Kelly, Jasmin Ramirez Bonila, Madison Hendrick, Mia Lippey and Gabe Foote (See news story--and read their abstracts--at https://bit.ly/3CAOh22.)
The 7000-member ESA, founded in 1889, is the world's largest organization serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and those in related disciplines. Its members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists. They represent educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
ESA announced the award today.
Sparks, who holds a doctorate in entomology (1978) from UC Riverside, was the first graduate student of then UCR faculty member Bruce Hammock, who joined the UC Davis faculty in 1980.
“This is a huge honor and directly due to Bruce's influence,” said Sparks, a retired research fellow at Corteva Agriscience (a Dow AgroSciences) in Indianapolis, Ind. He will receive the award at ESA's annual November meeting, to take place in Denver, Colo.
The award recognizes creative entomologists who have demonstrated the ability to find alternative solutions to problems that significantly impact entomology.
Sparks is the first scientist from the crop protection industry to receive the Nan-Yao Su Award and the second Hammock lab alumnus to do so. ESA selected Bryony Bonning, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Hammock lab and now a professor at Iowa State University, for the award in 2013. Walter Leal, former chair of the entomology department and now a UC Davis distinguished professor with the UC Davis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, won the award in 2011.
“As a graduate student studying insect physiology and toxicology, Tom was amazingly innovative,” said Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. “He was in the lab early, he stayed late and he 'sang while he worked.” (Sparks says he sang "because no radios were allowed in the lab.")
“Fifty years later this is mainline biological chemistry,” Hammock pointed out, adding that Sparks started in biological control and then moved to insect physiology and toxicology (Hammock's lab) while in graduate school at UC Riverside. After graduate school, Sparks served as a professor of insecticide biochemistry and toxicology with the Louisiana State University's Department of Entomology. He then headed to Indianapolis to join Eli Lilly and Co., which shortly thereafter became DowElanco, then Dow AgroSciences, and finally Corteva Agriscience.
Sparks' lifelong focus is on developing green pesticides, Hammock said. “His greatest success of many successes has been with a complex group of what are known as polyketides. Specifically, Tom pioneered the spinosids as a new class of selective pesticides for integrated pest management (IPM). Tom was a leader in this program from the concept of natural product compounds through structural optimization to integration into pest management and resistance management programs nationally and internationally.”
“Dr. Sparks is internationally recognized as a leader and innovator in the field of insect biochemistry and toxicology, especially as it relates to the discovery of new crop protection compounds,” wrote Ronda Hamm of Corteva Agriscience, Indianapolis, who headed the nomination team.
A member of ESA for more than 40 years, Sparks “has a history of bringing new ideas and innovative approaches to the discovery of new insect control agents, resulting in several commercial products,” Hamm pointed out. “Through his innovative application of state-of-the art technologies, Dr. Sparks has succeeded in catalyzing the discovery and development of natural product-based compounds for the control of pest insects. One particularly relevant measure of Dr. Sparks' innovation is patents--unusually for a non-chemist, he has 47 patents covering a wide range of chemistries and ideas as it applies to the control of agricultural pests.”
Hammock praised Sparks for his innovative accomplishments. “For the past several decades, Dr. Sparks' goal has been to provide new, greener, tools that will allow growers and farmers around the world to feed an expanding global population," Hammock said. "To this end, Dr. Sparks employed an array of innovative approaches to the discovery of new insect control agents. His innovations are well-illustrated by his ‘what if..' questions and his answers and results from those questions.”
(Editor's Note: See list of other 2021 ESA winners)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But did you know that they are all interlinked and that each won the prestigious Kenneth A. Spencer Award of the American Chemical Society (ACS)? They represent three generations of scientists--knowledge passed from Casida to Hammock to Sparks.
Thomas Sparks, the first graduate student of UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock, is the 2019 recipient, following in the generational footsteps of Hammock, his major professor at UC Riverside and UC Davis; and Hammock's major professor, the late John Casida of UC Berkeley.
Sparks accepted the award at the recent ACS meeting in San Diego. Hammock received the Spencer award in 1993, and Casida in 1978.
In his talk, Sparks acknowledged that he was a “third generation winner” following Casida and Hammock. "I was surprised to get a very large response/applause for this--very gratifying and likely testimony to the high regard for John Casida and Bruce Hammock."
"I was there cheering for Tom," Hammock said. "He gave a wonderful talk. Actually, I was there with Tom and our wives and my second student Keith Wing."
Casida, Hammock, Sparks and Wing also won the ACS International Award for their research: Casida, the inaugural winner, won it in 1969; Hammock in 1992; Sparks in 2012, and Wing in 2015.
Sparks, a native of San Francisco who grew up in a farming community in the central valley, is an internationally recognized leader in the discovery of new insect control agents, the biochemistry and toxicology of insecticides, and insecticide resistance. Formerly a professor at Louisiana State University (LSU) and then a researcher in private industry for three decades, he recently retired as a research fellow from Corteva Agriscience (formerly Dow AgroSciences).
“Tom was instrumental in the discovery and development of a new class of insecticides called spinosids,” said Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. Spinosad, launched in 1997, is a naturally occurring mixture of spinosyns. Sparks co-invented the next-generation semi-synthetic spinosyn-based insecticide, spinetoram, that improved the efficacy, spectrum, and residual of spinosad. Both compounds received the EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, spinosad;in 1999 and spinetoram in 2008.
Sparks praised the broad training and inspiration he received in Hammock's lab as “outstanding preparation for my future roles in science.”
Sparks served on LSU's Department of Entomology faculty from 1978 to 1989 as an insect toxicologist, achieving full professor. His research covered endocrine regulation of insect metamorphosis, insecticide resistance, and insecticide biochemistry and toxicology.
In 1989, Sparks joined the agrochemical research group, the joint venture between Eli Lilly and The Dow Chemical Company, DowElanco (later known as Dow AgroSciences). He worked in discovery research for nearly three decades.
Sparks holds 46 patents or patent applications and continues to publish widely. He has published more than 175 refereed journal publications, book chapters, and other articles. Many involve a variety of discovery efforts in innovative insecticidal chemistries.
In recognition of this work, Thomas was named R&D Magazine's 2009 Scientist of the Year, the first in the 50-year history of the award for a scientist working in the field of agriculture. He also received the ACS International Award for Research in Agrochemicals (2012) and the AGRO Award for Innovation in Chemistry of Agriculture (2015). He is a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America and, in 2018, received the Entomological Society of America Recognition Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology.
Other UC Davis-affiliated recipients of the Spencer Award include the late Emil Mrak, for whom Mrak Hall is named.
The award memorializes Kenneth A. Spencer (1902-1960), a Kansas City geologist, engineer, coal miner, philanthropist and owner of the Spencer Chemical Company.
