- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
They are coordinated by assistant professors Brian Johnson and Joanna Chiu.
Wednesday, Oct. 2 (cancelled, due to government shutdown)
Jay Evans
Research entomologist, USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory, Beltsville, MD
Title of talk: "Bee Disease Resistance and Colony Health"
Wednesday, Oct. 9
Rob DeSalle
Curator of entomology, American Museum of Natural History (AMNH)
Affiliated with AMNH Division of Invertebrate Zoology and leads a group of researchers at the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics,
Title of talk: “The Tree of Life is Dead, Long Live the Tree of Life”
Host: Joanna Chiu, assistant professor
Wednesday, Oct. 16
Sandra Gillespie
Postdoctoral researcher
Neal Williams lab
Department of Entomology and Nematology, UC Davis
Title of talk: "Parasites and Pesticides: Indirect Effects on Pollination Service"
Wednesday, Oct. 23
Ivan Schwab
Director of Cornea and External Disease Service
Professor of Ophthalmology
Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Science
UC Davis Health System, Sacramento
Title of talk: "Vision from Trilobites to Trichogammatids: How the Arthropods See"
Wednesday, Oct. 30
Robert Reiner
Post-doctoral research fellow
Thomas Scott lab and Fogarty International Center
UC Davis
Title of talk: “A Quantitative Method for Estimating Spatio-Temporal Mosquito Abundance”
Host: Thomas Scott
Wednesday, Nov. 6
Patrick Abbot
Associate professor
Department of Biological Sciences Vanderbilt University, Nashville Tenn.
Title of talk: “Cooperation and Conflict at the Plant/Insect Interface”
Host: Brian Johnson, assistant professor
Wednesday, Nov. 13
Gregory Lanzaro
Professor
Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
Title of talk: "Anthropogenic Forces Drive the Breakdown of Reproductive Isolation between Incipient Species of the African Malaria Mosquito."
Wednesday, Nov. 20
Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Lecture
6 to 7 p.m. in Memorial Union II. A reception from 5 to 6 p.m. will precede the seminar.
All About Thomas Leigh
Kenneth Haynes
Professor
Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.
Title of talk: "Life Undercover: Behavioral Characteristics of a Stealthy Blood Feeder"
Host: Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, Nov. 27
No speaker (Thanksgiving Week)
Wednesday, Dec. 4 (Due to midwest storms and a flight delay, his seminar will be from 4:10 to 5 p.m. instead of at 12:10)
George Heimpel
Professor and director of Graduate Studies
Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul
Title of talk: "Specificity and the Process of Biological Control Using Aphid Parasitoids"
Host: Jay Rosenheim, professor
Wednesday, Dec. 11
Gerben Messelink
Entomologist at Wageningen UR Greenhouse Horticulture, Rotterdam Area, Netherlands
Title of talk: "Generalist Predators and Biological Pest Control in Greenhouse Crops"
Host: Michael Parrella, professor and chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
The seminars are scheduled to be video-recorded and posted on a later date on UCTV in a project coordinated by professor James R. Carey.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The event is free and open to the public, said Anna Davidson, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Plant Sciences who is organizing and chairing the LASER speaker series. This is the first of five LASER events, made possible by Leonardo International Society of the Arts Sciences and Technology and the UC Davis Art Science Fusion Program.
Among the speakers on Oct. 3 will be Diane Ullman and Donna Billick, co-founders and co-directors of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program. Founded 12 years ago, the program includes design and science faculty, museum educators, professional artists and UC Davis students, using a novel experientially based paradigm for learning.
The mission of the LASERs is to provide the general public with a snapshot of the cultural environment of the Davis/Bay area and to foster interdisciplinary networking with an emphasis on art and science through a series of lectures and presentations, according to the Leonardo website. LASER events have already taken place at the University of San Francisco, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, a New York studio “and now we’re coming to UC Davis,” she said.
The schedule for the Oct. 3 program:
6:30-6:50 Socializing/networking
6:50-7:00 Welcome, opening remarks on the Davis inaugural LASER by Anna Davidson
7:00-7:25: Diane Ullman and Donna Billick, co-founders and co-directors of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, speaking on “Fusion and Perception”
7:25-7:50 Bob Ostertag, professor of technocultural studies at UC Davis (title of his talk to be announced)
7:50-8:10 Break. (During the break anyone in the audience currently working within the intersections of art and science will have 30 seconds to share their work (a teaser/commercial)
8:10-8:35 Meredith Tromble, San Francisco Art Institute School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and Jordan Van Aalsburg, research programmer for the UC Davis Complexity Sciences Center, Department of Physics, speaking on “The Vortex Touches Down”
8:35-9 James Crutchfield, UC Davis physics professor and director of the Complexity Sciences Center, speaking on “Hidden Fragility and the Data Deluge”
9-9:30 Discussion/Networking
Billick is an eight-year member of the board of directors of the Tile Heritage Foundation, and is involved in many other regional and national organizations. She founded Todos Artes in Baja Mexico and the Heaven On Earth educational series. As the co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, Billick partners with Ullman in teaching the undergraduate course: “Entomology 1: The Art, Science and the World of Insects,” as well as a series of freshmen seminars covering widespread topics.
Of her talk, Billick says: “I would like to map how fusion or the unity of knowledge, includes cross-discipline, cross culture, cross generational exploration and discovery. An experiential, hands-on approach to education, as with Art/Science Fusion, is to access perception and grow new associations and build life force or fusion energy.”
Bob Ostertag, a professor of technocultural studies at UC Davis, is a musician, author and movie producer. He has published 25 music CDS, two movies, two DVDs, four books and dozens of articles and essays. His writings on the Central American revolutions of the 1980s have been published on every continent and in many languages. Ostertag has performed at music, film and multi-media festivals around the globe, and many of his instruments he designed himself. His diverse collaborators include the Kronos Quartet, avant garder John Zorn, heavy metal star Mike Patton, jazz great Anthony Braxton, transgender chanteuse Justin Bond, Quebecois film maker Pierre Hébert, and the media guerrilla group, The Yes Men.
Meredith Tromble is an artist, faculty member of the San Francisco Art Institute School of Interdisciplinary Studies, and serial collaborator. Under the auspices of James Crutchfield, she and colleagues Dawn Sumner and Jordan Van Aalsburg are creating an immersive, interactive 3D vortex of dream elements called Take Me to Your Dream (Dream Vortex).
Jordan Van Aalsburg, who describes himself as “a recovering physicist,” is a research programmer for the UC Davis Complexity Sciences Center. He co-founded the Davis Makerspace, builder tools and resources for the local community.
James Crutchfield, a UC Davis professor of physics, teaches nonlinear physics, directs its Complexity Sciences Center, and promotes science interventions in nonscientific settings. He says he is mostly concerned with what patterns are, how they are created, and how intelligent beings discover them (see http://csc.ucdavis.edu/~chaos/).
Anna Davidson is studying the ecophysiology of fruit trees for her doctorate. She also makes bioart using fungus and other living materials as a medium. As a teacher for the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, she leads the found object and sculpture studio section of the class, “Entomology 1, Art, Science, and the World of Insects.”
“I am very interested curriculum development and teaching at the intersection of biology and the arts,” Davidson said.
Upcoming LASER events at UC Davis:
Dec. 2, 2013
Amy Franceschini, artist and designer, Bay Area
Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology, UC Davis
Mary Anne Kluth, artist, Bay Area
Justin Schuetz, biologist and artist, San Francisco Art Institute
Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014
Phillip Benn, artist and digital artist, Oakland
Terry Nathan, UC Davis Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the Art/Science Fusion Program
Genevieve Quick, artist, Bay Area
Maciej Zwieniecki, UC Davis professor of plant sciences
Monday, April 7, 2014
Christina Cogdell, UC Davis professor of design and art history
Jesse Drew, UC Davis professor of technoculutural studies
Michael Neff, UC Davis professor of computer science and program of cinema and technocultural studies
Wendy Silk, professor in the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and the Art/Science Fusion Program
June 2, 2014
Joe Dumit, UC Davis director of Sciences and Technology Studies and professor of anthropology
Evan Clayburg, performance/visual artist, Davis
Danielle Svehla Christianson, ecologist, fiber artist, Bay Area
Leonardo community members interested in presenting work at an upcoming LASER should contact LASER chair Piero Scaruffi p@scaruffi.com com for details. To RSVP to attend an upcoming LASER event, email p@scaruffi.com or adavidson@ucdavis.edu for the Davis LASERS.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ullmann, based in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will provide an overview of native bee diversity in Yolo County, discuss threats to native bees in the region, and explore efforts to enhance habitat for pollinators.
Ullmann also will highlight the importance of native bees for agricultural production, and the efforts of local organizations, landowners and researchers to identify and enhance plant communities that support pollinator populations in the context of global change. She will provide a slide show of pollinators, including honey bees, bumble bees, butterflies, and syrphid flies.
In the Williams lab, Ullmann focuses her research on pollinator habitat restoration and understanding how pollinator species are able to persist in highly modified landscapes, including agricultural lands. Williams, a pollination ecologist, is an associate professor.
Her talk will be CreekSpeak’s fifth of 2013 in its six-month series of community talks about the nature, culture and history of the region. A $5 donation is requested from those who have not yet joined the council.
The final CreekSpeak talk of 2013 will be on Oct. 17 when Marilyn Ramenofsky will speak on “Birds of Putah Creek.”
Putah Creek Council is dedicated to the protection and enhancement of Putah Creek and its tributaries through advocacy, education and community-based stewardship. They envision Putah Creek as "a thriving corridor of native riparian and aquatic ecosystems connecting the Coast Ranges to the Sacramento River and the Delta." They seek a watershed community of people who value their creek and are committed to its stewardship, according to their website.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Evans has worked as a research entomologist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) Beltsville Bee Research Laboratory for 14 years. His projects have focused on a range of bee pests including bacteria, fungi, viruses and, mites, and beetles. He is especially interested in the immune defenses of bees toward these threats.
Evans was an early proponent of the Honey Bee Genome Project and helped recruit and organize scientists interested in applied genomics for bees. He has improved and applied genetic screens for possible causes of colony collapse disorder and is now heading a consortium to sequence the genome of the Varroa mite in order to develop novel control methods for this key pest.
Evans holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Princeton and a doctorate in biology from the University of Utah.
The fall seminars, coordinated by faculty members Joanna Chiu and Brian Johnson, will be held every Wednesday noon through Dec. 11 in 122 Briggs Hall, except for Nov. 27, Thanksgiving Week, when no seminar will be held.
The complete list of fall seminars (with topics to be announced later):
Wednesday, Oct. 2 (cancelled due to government shutdown)
Jay Evans
Research entomologist, USDA-ARS Bee Research Laboratory, Beltsville, MD
Title of talk: "Bee Disease Resistance and Colony Health"
Wednesday, Oct. 9
Rob DeSalle
Curator of entomology, American Museum of Natural History (AMNH)
Affiliated with AMNH Division of Invertebrate Zoology and leads a group of researchers at the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics,
Title of talk: “The Tree of Life is Dead, Long Live the Tree of Life”
Wednesday, Oct. 16
Sandra Gillespie
Postdoctoral researcher
Neal Williams lab
Department of Entomology and Nematology, UC Davis
Title of talk: "Parasites and Pesticides: Indirect Effects on Pollination Service"
Wednesday, Oct. 23
Ivan Schwab
Director of Cornea and External Disease Service
Professor of Ophthalmology
Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Science
UC Davis Health System, Sacramento
Title of talk: "Vision from Trilobites to Trichogammatids: How the Arthropods See"
Wednesday, Oct. 30
Robert Reiner
Post-doctoral research fellow
Thomas Scott lab and Fogarty International Center
UC Davis
Title of talk: to be announced
Wednesday, Nov. 6
Patrick Abbot
Associate professor
Department of Biological Sciences Vanderbilt University, Nashville Tenn.
Title of talk: “Cooperation and Conflict at the Plant/Insect Interface”
Wednesday, Nov. 13
Gregory Lanzaro
Professor
Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
Title of talk: to be announced
Wednesday, Nov. 20
Kenneth Haynes
Professor
Department of Entomology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky.
Title of talk: to be announced
Wednesday, Nov. 27
No speaker (Thanksgiving Week)
Wednesday, Dec. 4
George Heimpel
Professor and director of Graduate Studies
Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul
Title of talk: "Specificity and the Process of Biological Control Using Aphid Parasitoids"
Wednesday, Dec. 11
Gerben Messelink
Entomologist at Wageningen UR Greenhouse Horticulture, Rotterdam Area, Netherlands
Title of talk: "Generalist Predators and Biological Pest Control in Greenhouse Crops"
The seminars are scheduled to be video-recorded and posted on a later date on UCTV in a project coordinated by professor James R. Carey.
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- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
He is the co-author of Bumble Bees of California: An Identification Guide (2014, Princeton University Press) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (2014, Heyday Books).
Of the 20,000 bee species identified worldwide, some 4000 are found in the United States, and 1600 in California.
He continues to conduct research on bees because he enjoys it. He monitors the bee population at the half-acre bee friendly garden, Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven garden, located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis. He began collecting baseline data in the field before the garden was installed in the fall of 2009. To date, has collected more than 80 species of bees "and counting."
Robbin has long-term projects on the status of western bumble bees, on the diversity of bees on Santa Cruz Island, Calif., and on native pollen specialist bees in vernal pool ecosystems. He provides identification services for collaborators studying native bees as crop pollinators, habitat restoration for pollinators on farms, and urban gardens as bee habitat.
Brief Bio
Professor Thorp received his bachelor and master's degrees in zoology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and his doctorate degree in entomology from the University of California, Berkeley.
See more about Robbin Thorp (recipient of the distinguished emeritus award) on this web page
Information on native bees, vernal pools, bumble bees, and urban bee gardens:
Native bees are a rich natural resource in urban California gardens (California Agriculture)
Vernal pool flowers and their specialist bee pollinators (California Vernal Pools)
Bumble bees in decline (Xerces Society)
Bumble bees in Caifornia (UC Berkeley)
Urban bee gardens (UC Berkeley)
UC Davis Bee Team Wins Special Award
Robbin Thorp Research Wins Dickson Award
Robbin Thorp Part of Team Award, Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America
Robbin Thorp's Mission: Saving Franklin's Bumble Bee
Co-Author of Bumble Bees of North America
Robbin Thorp: Presentation on Buzzed for Bees
Robbin Thorp and Xerces Society: Saving a Bumble Bee
More (Watch his Webinar on bumble bees)
Contact:
Robbin Thorp
Professor emeritus, native pollinator specialist
Email: rwthorp@ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 752-0482