- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Gilik graduated this year with double degrees--a bachelor's degree in entomology and a bachelor's degree in neurobiology, physiology and behavior--in a five-year program.
“Susan's undergraduate GPA is 3.589,” said Professor Sharon Lawler, who nominated her for the award. “She completed an impressive 231 units, in addition to arriving with 40 Advanced Placement (AP) units.”
Gilik, who grew up in San Diego, traces her interest in entomology to her childhood. “My mom tells me that I have been preoccupied with the little animals since I could walk,” Gilik said. “She said that I would sit and watch the little guys for hours. As I grew, I got into rearing caterpillars. My mother was a hobbyist rose breeder and grew many plants. She was very supportive and when we found caterpillars chomping her plants, she let me keep them and feed them her plants.”
While rearing caterpillars, young Susan marveled over their physiology and development. “From the delicate and difficult task of shedding their skins to the dissolution of their internal workings during metamorphis, it seemed difficult being an insect. Later, when I learned more about evolution and ecology, it started to hit me how important insects are for pollination, in the spread of disease and as food for other animals.”
“I loved the entomology classes here ... there were so many on such varying topics! I really enjoyed that I could learn both about physiology and ecology/evolution of insects. It was great to be taught by professors who had a lot of experience--and fun stories--on the topics they were teaching.”
In addition to her studies, Gilik served as a student firefighter with the UC Davis Fire Department. “During high school I became interested in becoming a firefighter," she said in a quote on the department's website. "I found out about the program after coming to Davis and saw that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “
Her favorite part of the student firefighter program? "I love the camaraderie. Everyone puts in an enormous effort to help each other out.”
This summer Gilik is assisting with the David Rizzo laboratory research in the Sierra Nevada on forest fire effects on plant pathogens--“how native pathogens of conifers are affected by native fire regime,” she said. Rizzo is a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology. His research focuses on the ecology and management of exotic and native forest tree diseases, primarily in California ecosystems.
Her future goals? “I want to try out as many different things as I can before making any decisions and going back to school to start my career.”
Recent recipients of Outstanding Entomology Undergraduate Awards:
2012: Ivana Li
2011: Danielle Wishon
In addition, Stephanie Calloway received the 2012 Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Senior in Entomology and Ivana Li won the 2013 Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Senior in Entomology.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Titled “The Role of EETs in Pressure-induced Vasoconstriction,” the podcast explains the ground-breaking research involving the role of EETs (Epoxyeicosatrienoic acids) in regulating the myogenic tone in a skeletal muscle small resistance artery. The research, done on rodents, could lead to better control of high blood pressure in humans.
In the podcast, associate editor Mordy Blaustein interviews lead author An Huang (New York Medical College) and expert David Harder (Medical College of Wisconsin) about what Blaustein describes as “an innovative knock-out mouse model, responses of different types of vascular beds to various vasodilatory agents, and the importance of basic studies on SEH inhibitors as the backbone of clinical trials.”
EETs possess cardioprotective properties that are “catalyzed by soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) to dihydroxyeicosatrienoic acids (DHETs) that lack vasoactive property,” the seven-member scientific team wrote in their research, Soluble epoxide hydrolase-dependent regulation of myogenic response and blood pressure, published April 15 in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
“To date, the role of sEH in the regulation of myogenic response of resistant arteries, a key player in the control of blood pressure, remains unknown,” they wrote in their abstract. “To this end, experiments were conducted on sEH-knockout (KO) mice, wild-type (WT) mice, and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS)-KO mice treated with t-TUCB, a sEH inhibitor, for 4 wk. sEH-KO and t-TUCB-treated mice displayed significantly lower blood pressure, associated with significantly increased vascular EETs and ratio of EETs/DHETs. Pressure-diameter relationships were assessed in isolated and cannulated gracilis muscle arterioles. All arterioles constricted in response to increases in transmural pressure from 60 to 140 mmHg. The myogenic constriction was significantly reduced, expressed as an upward shift of pressure-diameter curve, in arterioles of sEH-KO and t-TUCB-treated eNOS-KO mice compared with their controls. Removal of the endothelium, or treatment of the vessels with PPOH, an inhibitor of EET synthase, restored the attenuated pressure-induced constriction to the levels similar to those observed in their controls but had no effects on control vessels. No difference was observed in the myogenic index, or in the vascular expression of eNOS, CYP2C29 (EET synthase), and CYP4A (20-HETE synthase) among these groups of mice. In conclusion, the increased EET bioavailability, as a function of deficiency/inhibition of sEH, potentiates vasodilator responses that counteract pressure-induced vasoconstriction to lower blood pressure.”
Lead author An Huang is with the Department of Physiology, New York Medical College, Valhalla.
In addition to Huang and Hammock, who has a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, the co-authors are Sung Hee Hwang of the Hammock lab; Dong Sun, Department of Physiology, New York Medical College, Valhalla; Azita J. Cuevas and Michal L. Schwartzman, both with the Department of Pharmacology, New York Medical College, Valhalla; and Katherine Gotlinger, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo.
Grants from the by National Institutes of Health supported the research.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Katie Wen-Chin Lee and Kristina Ho entered their poster in a competition at the 48th annual meeting of the California-Nevada chapter of the American Fisheries Society.
In addition, Sean Goodside recently led a team of three students who studied the response of juvenile green sturgeon to water flows. “He obtained the records of all three observers and forged them into a nice report,” said Peter Klimley adjunct professor in the Wildlife and Fisheries Biology Program, in an email. “I anticipate that the poster and report will eventually become scientific papers, a real credit to all three undergraduate students.”
The judging of student oral presentations and posters took place in Sacramento. This was the 14th consecutive year that the Northern California District of the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists (AIFRB) has judged the student work. The competition drew nine student papers and six posters.
Katie Lee and Kristina Ho are both animal biology majors who plan to graduate this summer. Sean Goodside received his bachelor's degree in June.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology serves as the master advisor of Animal Biology and Elvira Galvan Hack as the undergraduate advisor.
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About Animal Biology (from website)
The Animal Biology (ABI) major offers students training in the biological and natural sciences as they apply to animals. ABI students are encouraged to think beyond particular groups of animals in which they are interested and to consider science as a process and a way of advancing society. Emphasis is on biological principles that can be used in research or in solving societal problems associated with animals in agriculture, urban areas, or natural environments as opposed to animal care and husbandry. The major requirements provide students the opportunity to develop research and scientific writing skills; demonstrate critical thinking; work closely with faculty, staff, researchers, grad students, and/or professors; and be creative in a scientific environment.
The Program
The major consists of core biological science courses that build on animal biology from molecular foundations to the ecological and evolutionary levels of organization. After completing the core courses (usually at the beginning of the junior year), ABI students have the option of specializing in various interdisciplinary aspects of animal biology and plan their chosen emphasis of study in consultation with their adviser.
The program combines a research project (practicum) under the guidance of a faculty mentor together with supportive coursework. This gives the students a great deal of freedom in choosing classes and a research topic.
The ABI research experience remains unique among undergraduate science majors at UC Davis. By graduation, in addition to completing coursework on the principles of biology, every ABI student has designed and conducted a research project and written a final report of his/her findings.
Advising
On the advising side, we pride ourselves on our ability to provide one-on-one support for each and every one of our students in the major. Because the practicum requires the student to choose courses related to his/her research topic, no two ABI students take all of the same courses. This gives us the privilege of meeting with and getting to know all of our students.
We are always available to answer questions or schedule appointments through email so if you have questions about the program or classes please feel free to contact us.
Elvira Hack, eghack@ucdavis.edu, (530) 754-7277.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS--Mary Louise “Mary Lou” Flint, a longtime leader of the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM) Program and an Extension entomologist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is the recipient of the 2014 James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award for her outstanding contributions to the university.
Flint, UC IPM's associate director for Urban and Community IPM, and a June 2014 retiree, is the third entomologist (Frank Zalom, 2004, and Thomas Leigh, 1988) to receive the Academic Federation award, first presented in 1971.
A dinner honoring her will take place at 6 p.m., Monday, Dec. 1 in Ballrooms B and C of the UC Davis Conference Center.
“This is a special award for me because of my father-in-law (former UC Davis Chancellor James Meyer for whom the award is named) and his strong support for the Academic Federation and the Cooperative Extension Specialists, Agricultural Experiment Station researchers and other non-Senate academics it represents,” Flint said.
Meyer (1922-2002) served as chancellor from 1969 to 1987, during the university's greatest period of growth and change.
Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, nominated Flint for the award. “Her name is synonymous with IPM, pest control alternatives, and public service, not just in California and the United States, but worldwide,” he wrote in his letter of nomination.
Wrote UC IPM Director Kassim Al-Khatib: “Dr. Flint has initiated, conducted, and established an outstanding and well respected IPM research and outreach program for urban and community. Many of her programs and findings have significant impact on pest management in California. She is a talented, capable specialist and good communicator to the IPM end-user.” Globally, the UC IPM program is considered the gold standard of IPM.
Flint received her bachelor's degree in plant sciences in 1972 from UC Davis, and her doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley in 1979. “We are fortunate that she chose to spend her career here at UC Davis,” Parrella said.
Among her accomplishments:
- Created, wrote or edited and oversaw the development of the UC IPM's IPM Manual series of books from 1980-2007; this series includes IPM manuals on 15 different agricultural crops or crop groups. More than 100,000 copies of these books have been sold worldwide.
- Oversaw the development and creation of the online UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines from 1987-2007. This series included 43-crop specific PMGs featuring hundreds of pests and thousands of photographs and authored by UC experts around the state and updated regularly. Flint served as technical editor. She developed many online tools associated with the PMGs such as the Natural Enemies Gallery and the Weed Galleries.
- Established the UC IPM Pest Note series for home, garden, landscape and urban audiences. This series covers more than 165 pests. About 12,000 people a day access these publications on the UC IPM Home and Garden website.
- Authored several important books on IPM including Pests of the Garden and Small Farm, IPM in Practice: Principles and Methods of IPM and The Natural Enemies Handbook. She developed the Pesticide Compendium series along with Patrick O'Connor Marer.
- Created some of the earliest interactive learning tools of IPM, including the 1996 CD-ROM Solving Garden Problems: A University of California Interactive Guide and The UC Interactive Tutorial for Biological Control of Insects and Mites (an interactive CD-ROM, Publication 3412). She and her colleagues also created some of the first online training materials for IPM with online training programs for retail nursery and garden center personnel. The UC Guide to Healthy Lawns on the UC IPM website is another key accomplishment. UC IPM takes its 16 portable UC IPM Touch Screen IPM kiosks to hundreds of retail stores and community events. More recently, Flint has been heavily involved in creating YouTube videos on the UC IPM channel and disseminating information through other electronic and social media.
- Developed hands-on, train-the-trainer programs for UC Master Gardeners, retail nursery personnel and landscape professionals that have resulted in the delivery of information to far more people than would be possible through conventional training meetings. Among the topics: biological control, pesticides and landscape pest identification.
Butte County Cooperative Extension Director and Farm Advisor Joseph Connell lauded Flint's outstanding work in “developing a wide range of Pest Notes covering topics of concern to both commercial growers and homeowners. These notes are widely distributed through Cooperative Extension offices statewide and are regularly used by Master Gardeners throughout California in their numerous outreach efforts to provide the public with peer reviewed pest management answers to common problems.”
Bay Area IPM Advisor Andrew Sutherland, Alameda County, noted that “Mary Louise Flint clearly understands the importance of reaching urban clientele through electronic media and hands-on educational programs. Urban pesticide applications have the potential to disproportionately affect surface water quality due to the prevalence of impervious surfaces and frequent runoff in urban areas.
“Mary Louise has aimed to reduce these negative impacts by extending pesticide and IPM information and resources to the main urban users of pesticides; the general public. She has utilized important urban extenders, such as UCCE Master Gardeners and retail garden center and hardware store staff, as well as mass media to disseminate the IPM message and directives. These applied and innovative programs have doubtless outcomes, such as reductions in urban pesticide use, and probable impacts, such as improved biodiversity and survival of aquatic invertebrates, key members of the food web.”
Said research entomologist Steven J. Seybold of the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Davis, and an affiliate of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology: “Dr. Flint is a California and national leader in outreach/technology transfer in the area of urban and community integrated pest management. For almost three decades she held the leadership position of director of the UC Statewide IPM Program's Education and Publications unit and singlehandedly guided and nurtured the development of the print and electronic media program that is the basis for the outreach success of UC Statewide IPM today….she cares fiercely about the creativity, technical merit, quality, and appearance of the materials provided by the IPM program and this attention to detail and her high standards have paid dividends to my own research program.”
“On a national level, Mary Louise was instrumental in facilitating the rapid processing and release of the national trapping guidelines for the walnut twig beetle, a bark beetle that vectors the pathogenic agent for thousand cankers disease of walnut,” said Seybold, a noted chemical ecologist. “Once our team had discovered the aggregation pheromone of this beetle and had demonstrated its value in trapping the insect in California, Mary Louise assisted us with the preparation and dissemination of useful trapping guidelines, which have been employed by state pest regulatory officials and detection entomologists throughout the country.”
Widely honored by her peers, Flint received the 2002 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award for Integrated Pest Management from the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists; a 2003 IPM Innovator Award from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation as part of the Sacramento Water Wise Pest Control Program; a 2003 resolution from the Sacramento City Council honoring her for contributions to the Sacramento Water Wise Program; a 2004 Environmental Services Award from the San Francisco Department of the Environment; and an international IPM Award of Recognition, “Grower Incentives Team Project,” at the 2009 International IPM Symposium in Portland, Ore.
Active in the Academic Federation, Flint chaired the merits and promotions committee (Joint Academic Federation/Academic Senate) for three years.
Flint is not only the third entomologist to receive the award, but the third IPM specialist. Frank Zalom, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, directed the UC IPM Program for 16 years (1988-2001). He is currently serving as president of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America. Thomas Leigh (1923-1993) stood at the forefront of integrated pest management of cotton pests, according to an article in the summer 1994 edition of American Entomologist. He taught courses on cotton IPM and host plant resistance.
Related links:
Past recipients of the James H. Meyer Award
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Dragonflies, cabbage white butterflies, skippers, and honey bees especially drew his attention.
His choice of a career—entomologist, botanist, paleontologist, anthropologist, herpetologist, everything with an “ist”—“rested largely on what I could sneak into the house,” Grissell quipped, recalling that his mother wasn't terribly enthusiastic about bugs or snakes. In fact, she hated them. “But I could hide a lot more bugs in my bedroom than I could snakes—take my word on it!”
“I eventually gravitated to what was most abundant in my habitat, namely plants and bugs,” Grissell, would later write in his chapter, ‘City Toads and Country Bugs,” in Jean Adams' book, Insect Potpourri: Adventures in Entomology. “Of the two, insects fulfilled a more immediate need than did plants. After all chasing butterflies was a lot more stimulating than chasing dandelions.”
Born Aug. 10, 1944 in Washington, D.C., Eric lived in San Francisco from 1947 to 1952. His adventures led to his first published paid story ($2) in 1954 at age 12 in the San Francisco Examiner. “It was about a crawfish.”
E. Eric Grissell went on to receive his master's degree and doctorate in entomology from the University of California, Davis, completing his Ph.D. in 1973. Grateful for the advice, encouragement, and opportunities given him, he is now giving back to the university that mentored, molded and motivated him.
The entomology fund is geared for undergraduate and graduate students studying insect systematics, with preference for students associated with the Department of Entomology and Nematology's Bohart Museum of Entomology, named for his major professor, Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007).
The botany fund is in appreciation for the mentoring, advice and assistance Grissell received from UC Davis botanist John Maurice Tucker, “Dr. Oak” (1916-2008), professor and longtime director of the UC Davis Herbarium. (See more information about the herbarium and its founders).
“My thesis and dissertation dealt with parasitoid wasps that prey on gall-forming insects (some of which cause gall formation on oaks),” Grissell said. “Any botanist at Davis during the last half-century knows that Dr. Oak was the foremost authority on the oak genus at the time.” Tucker identified Grissell's specimens and “was always willing to help.”
Grissell received Sigma Xi and National Science Foundation grants to survey the western states for oak galls and reared parasitoids. Today many Grissell oak specimens are housed in the herbarium.
“I ended up essentially minoring in botany because I've always had an interest in plants,” Grissell said.
Fast forward to today. “The main reason I am supporting students in both the Plant Science and Entomology departments is that I received support when I needed it in the form of jobs from Richard Bohart (work study, research assistantship), much needed guidance and advice from John Tucker, and encouragement from both. Dick and his wife Margaret even housed and fed me for his last year of study.
“The Law Family Award is named in recognition of the moral support given by family members who never understood my attraction to bugs but opted not to place me in a mental institution where I would have been much better off,” he joked.
Following his UC Davis studies, Grissell accepted a position as a taxonomic entomologist for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services until 1978. From 1978 to 2005, he worked as a research entomologist for the Systematic Entomology Laboratory, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), located at the U.S. National Museum of Natural History. During his periods of employment, Grissell authored more than 100 papers, and served as editor of the Journal of Hymenoptera Research for seven years. Although retiring in 2005, he continues his work as a Smithsonian Institution research associate with the Museum of Natural History, and is a former adjunct associate professor at the University of Maryland.
Grissell authored several books published by Timber Press, including Bees, Wasps, and Ants: the Indispensable Role of Hymenoptera in Gardens (2010); Insects and Gardens, in Pursuit of a Garden Ecology, published in 2001 and recipient of two of the "Top 10" 2002 Garden Globe Awards presented by the Garden Writers Association of America -- one for Best Book and one for Best Writer; and another award from the American Horticultural Society); A Journal in Thyme(published in 1994); and Thyme on My Hands (published in 1987). He is currently writing a book on the history of garden zinnias. He hopes to finish the book, about three-fourths finished, by the middle of next year. “I've tried to make the book readable by including many odds and ends associated with the garden zinnia.”
In his book, Bees, Wasps and Ants, he writes: “Few insects are more important than bees, wasps, and ants. They maintain the garden's biological balance, fertilize vegetables, fruits, and flowers, and recycle nutrients within the soil. It's no exaggeration to say that a garden can't be understood without an understanding of its insects.”
Grissell and fellow UC Davis entomologist Arnold Menke nominated Bohart for the International Society of Hymenopterists Distinguished Research Medal, which he received at a ceremony held May 15, 2006 in Briggs Hall. They also coedited an honorary edition of the Pan-Pacific Entomologist (vol. 59) on the occasion of Bohart's 70th birthday. “Doc Bohart” died Feb. 1, 2007 in Berkeley.
Menke, a decade older than Grissell, was a postgraduate student in the Richard Bohart lab when Grissell was an undergraduate. “I knew him because I helped Dick catalog wasps for his book,” Grissell recalled. “Arnold took a job with the Systematic Entomology Laboratory when he graduated and then a number of years later, I took a job in the same lab a few doors down the hallway in the U.S. National Museum. I lived near Arnold and we commuted to work together until he retired.“ Today they live about 60 miles from each other.
“Eric was one of a group of Doc Bohart's favorite students,” said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, professor of entomology at UC Davis, and one of Bohart's last graduate students. She received her doctorate from UC Davis in 1979 and joined the faculty in 1989. “Eric is an excellent insect taxonomist and his research and writings have always brought together his interest in insects and plants. His generosity with this scholarship will help support and encourage students who share these interests.”