- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Scott is the recipient of the C. W. Woodworth Award, the highest honor given by PBESA. He will present a 20-minute seminar at the meeting.
In addition, the department's Linnaean team will compete at the PBESA meeting for a chance to participate in the national ESA's Linnaean Games. In the Linnaean Games, university teams--primarily comprised of graduate students--answer randomly selected questions about insects, entomologists, and entomological facts. It's a fun-filled competition with friendly rivalries. Further details on the Linnaean game will be announced later.
The ESA meeting is set Nov. 15-18 in Minneapolis.
The PBESA meeting, to be held in in the Coeur d'Alene Resort, is themed “Celebrating Entomological Discoveries in the Pacific Branch.”
The opening plenary speaker is Bethany Marshall of Washington State University who will discuss "Natureas Teacher, Insect as Muse." See the official announcement.
Links (read about their work)
James Carey
Thomas Scott
Mohammad-Amir Aghaee
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
This is the third consecutive year that a UC Davis graduate student has won the prestigious award, the highest student award given by PBESA. Kelly Hamby of the Frank Zalom lab, won it in 2013; and Matan Shelomi, a graduate student in the Lynn Kimsey lab, Bohart Museum of Entomology, won it in 2012.
Aghaee, a fifth year Ph.D. candidate working on rice water weevil management in California rice, will receive the award at PBESA's 99th annual meeting, set April 12-15 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, and will present a talk on the rice water weevil, Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus. He will be among the six Comstock recipients, all winners from their individual branches, honored at the national ESA meeting, Nov. 15-18, 2015 in Minneapolis, Minn.
The Pacific Branch of ESA encompasses 11 U.S. states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming); several U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands; and parts of Canada and Mexico.
“Mohammad took on a very difficult project for his dissertation research,” said Extension entomologist Larry Godfrey, who nominated Aghaee for the award. “His project deals with the most important invertebrate pest of rice in California, the rice water weevil. The challenges arose not only from working in the rice system--wading through mud for hours--but also from working with this insect that cannot be reared in the laboratory and which has one generation per year. Therefore, all the field studies had to be conducted within the short window of time each year.”
Aghaee received his bachelor's degree in environmental sciences, genetics and plant biology in 2010 from UC Berkeley, with high distinction. He obtained his master's degree in entomology from UC Davis in 2012, and expects to receive his doctorate in December 2015.
Aghaee fostered his interest in entomology through his employment as an undergraduate research assistant at UC Berkeley in the lab of aquatic entomologist Vincent Resh. Aghaee also traces his interest in entomology and pest management to his family's large garden, where they grew vegetables and fruits.
When he joined the Godfrey lab, Aghaee was awarded the competitive UC Davis Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship. His other honors include the William and Kathleen Golden International Agriculture Fellowship, and vegetation management award and a field studies scholarship. He teaches or serves as a teaching assistant for entomology classes and is a past president of the Entomology Graduate Student Association.
“Mohammad has a passion for public speaking and debating stemming from his involvement in the Berkeley Model Nations Alumni Association, starting in 2006, which organized crisis simulations for high school students around important political events,” Godfrey said.
Aghaee and Godfrey recently published an open-access article appearing in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management that discusses the rice water weevil's life history and invasion biology, as well as management strategies and future directions of research. They told the story of the weevil since it was first identified as a pest in 1881 by C. V. Riley and L. O. Howard. They then discussed reasons why it has been able to spread so rapidly — up to 36 kilometers per year in some cases — which is partly because of its ability to reproduce asexually.
“This invasive ability is aided by a particular and peculiar aspect of this weevil's biology, the fact that a small percentage of the population in its native range reproduces by parthenogenesis,” they wrote.
The most harmful insect pest of rice in the United States, it causes yield losses of up to 25 percent. Adults inflict damage by consuming leaf tissue, and the larvae feed on the roots of rice plants. A native of the southeastern U.S., the rice water weevil invaded Japan in 1976, Korea in 1980, China in 1988, and Italy in 2004.
Aghaee maintains secondary interests in post-Renaissance European history and contemporary Middle Eastern politics. He explores some of these themes in his freshman seminar titled "Bugs, Germs, and Steel: A History of Entomology in Warfare" where he and his colleagues teach students how basic scientific research and ecology has influenced human conflicts and technological progress. Outside of entomology, his leisure activities include oil painting, language acquisition, and culinary specialization in Persian and Indo-Pakistani cuisines.
The Comstock award memorializes John Henry Comstock (1849-1931), an American entomologist, researcher and educator known for his studies of scale insects and butterflies and moths, which provided the basis for systematic classification. Comstock was a member of the faculty of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., for most of his career, except for his service as a chief entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1879-81).
Related Links:
Zeroing in on the Rice Water Weevil
UC Davis Debate Team Wins ESA Championship
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The award will be presented at PBESA's 99th annual meeting, set April 12-15 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. PBESA encompasses 11 Western U.S. states, plus several U.S. territories and parts of Canada and Mexico. Carey's nomination then will advance to the national level of ESA.
“Dr. Carey is not only considered the most technologically innovative and creative classroom teacher on the UC Davis campus, but his expertise is highly regarded throughout the UC statewide system,” wrote nominator Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “He crafted a groundbreaking model for 21st century instruction, and his presentations are in high demand statewide, nationally and globally. His presentations have taken him from UC Davis to UC Irvine to the University of Alabama, and beyond, including Germany, Korea, Denmark, France and Africa.”
“Dr. Carey uses synergistic strategies to develop video-based learning methods for faculty research programs, professional networks and outreach programs,” Parrella said. “He has developed ‘what-you-need-to-know' videos to increase writing and speaking skills and technical fluency, as well as to understand such subjects as copyright and fair use laws. All are geared for ease of learning and increased knowledge retention.”
Carey last year received the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award from the UC Davis Academic Senate, an honor given to internationally recognized professors who excel at teaching.
When asked his philosophy of teaching, Carey said: “My philosophy of teaching is inseparable from my philosophy of scholarship. Students need to know the big picture to understand the pixels. They need to zoom in and zoom out so that they can consider the details I present in class in the context of larger conceptual and operational frameworks.”
Japanese exchange student Yuku Masada, enrolled in his Longevity course, praised him for his “creativity of coursework, unmeasurably broad knowledge and enthusiasm for mentoring.”
Another student, Julia Schleimer, described his Longevity course as “one of the best course I've taken at Davis. I've learned a tremendous amount of content material about the lifespan and aging, and have been equally inspired by your teaching methods. I especially respect the value you place on empowerment through education and research.”
Wrote student Anna Liu (Longevity course): “You came prepared to each lecture, excited and passionate to teach us about your areas of expertise and that helped me really learn and retain a lot more material than I would have otherwise. One of the stand out things I will remember is how to effectively write a research paper (thanks to the great guidelines and TA help!) and also the current aging trends (which I which completely unaware of). I especially loved how you used a variety of resources (Skype, online quizzes, and interesting readings) to help us have a good general overview of longevity and aging - it really helped me stay on top of the material!”
Carey's technological accomplishments include chairing the UC Academic Senate University Committee on Research Policy, and describing a framework or “road map” for using low-tech, low-cost, and easy-to-use video captures of seminars to increase research synergy across the 10 UC campuses. Carey advocates that seminars be “public”; that the tax-paying public be able to view the seminars for free. The result: the University of California TV Station (UCTV) used the roadmap to create the UCTV Seminars. To date, the website has tallied some 7 to 10 million seminar downloads.
Carey, who advises the systemwide UC Online and chairs the UC Davis Educational Technology Committee, also teaches faculty, staff and students how to create short, to-the-point videos, and how to record seminars. He himself has created 125 mini-videos. His 12-minute video covering 15 digital ideas and teaching continues to draw national and international attention (University of Virginia, United Nations Population Division, Denmark, France, Germany and Korea). He has delivered presentations from UC Davis to UC Irvine, and from the University of Alabama to overseas.
For the past three years, Carey has taught video instruction methods for the 9-university Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (Nairobi twice; and Kampala and Uganda once) and did so again in March. (See his video handbook at http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/files/206961.pdf)
He taught a UC Davis chemistry "how to make one-minute videos on the properties of the elements in periodic tables." The result: 540 one-minute videos, probably a world record.
Some of his major accomplishments in video technology:
Write Like a Professor: The Research Term Paper. To meet the considerable challenge of teaching writing to classes of 250 students, Carey created a playlist of 13 videos “Write Like a Professor: The Research Term Paper.” It is posted at the UC Davis library website.
Video-Capturing Talks and Course Enrichment Videos. In order to provide the most up-to-date, cutting edge information to his students, Carey video-captures either his own talks or presentations by the most prominent scholars.
One Minute Entomology. Carey innovated the concept of the “one minute expert” by launching student-produced videos that are 60 seconds in length. To date, students taught by Carey and two colleagues have produced more than 125 “One Minute Entomology” videos; most are posted on the entomology website. In this ongoing project, students learn entomology, insect identification, succinct writing and speaking, best practices for slide presentation, peer review and teamwork.
How to Make an Insect Collection. Carey taught undergraduate and graduate students how to gather information and produce short videos for “How to Make an Insect Collection.” The award-winning project, considered by the 7000-member Entomological Society of America, as the best of its kind on the internet, includes a playlist of 11 short videos showing different aspects of insect collecting--from use of nets and hand collecting to pinning mounting and labeling. It is available on the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website.
Longevity Course. Carey designed this course and teaches the biology and demography of aging (biodemography). Due to its popularity, enrollment increased from 14 students in 1999 to 250 last year.
Terrorism and War. This course, offered by Carey through the Science and Society program, was one of 27 UC systemwide courses to receive grant support ($75,000) from UC Online. Co-instructor John Arquilla, professor and chair of the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, praised Dr. Carey in a recent email: “I have spent my professional life dealing with issues of war and peace, strategy and policy and can say without hesitation that Professor Carey's skill, thoughtfulness, and dedication have come together to create a truly path-blazing course of instruction. It can and should become a model for general education courses in this field of inquiry, not only throughout the UC system, but throughout the country.”
Carey, considered the preeminent global authority on arthropod demography, has authored more than 250 scientific articles. He is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Gerontological Society of America, the California Academy of Sciences. Carey is the first entomologist to have a mathematical discovery named after him by demographers—The Carey Equality—which set the theoretical and analytical foundation for a new approach to understanding wild populations.
More information about his work is on his website.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Scott will receive the award at PBESA's 99th annual meeting, to be held April 12-15 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He will present a 30-minute talk April 13 on “Embracing Complexity: The Path to Improved Public Health Entomology.” Woodworth's great-grandson, Brian Holden of Monte Sereno, Calif., and a 1981 graduate of UC Davis in electrical engineering, will present the award.
Scott is the 10th UC Davis recipient and the second UC Davis medical entomologist to be selected for the award. Medical entomologist Robert Washino received the award in 1987.
Scott, who has researched mosquito-borne disease for 35 years, is a global authority on the epidemiology of mosquito-borne disease, mosquito ecology, evolution of mosquito-virus interactions, and evaluation of novel products and strategies for mosquito control and disease prevention. Among the top vector biologists in the world, he is recognized as the leading expert in the ecology and epidemiology of dengue, said nominator Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Scott is known for his holistic and comprehensive approach in finding solutions to protect the world's population from dengue, a disease that infects some 400 million per year. Some 4 billion people in 128 countries, more than half of the world's population, are at risk for dengue. Currently no vaccine or drug is effective against this life-threatening disease.
- Blood feeding behavior, longevity, dispersal, and vector-virus interactions of the mosquito Aedes aegypti;
- Longitudinal cohort studies of spatial and temporal patterns in human dengue virus infection in Peru and Thailand; (dengue research in Peru, Thailand, Puerto Rico and Mexico for the past 25 years)
- Impact of human movement on mosquito contact rates and spatial dimensions of dengue virus transmission; and
- Mathematical and computer simulation modeling of mosquito population biology and mosquito-borne pathogen transmission.
“Dr. Scott's research is groundbreaking, innovative and visionary,” his nominators said. “He generates detailed, difficult-to-obtain data that are crucial for assessing current recommendations for disease prevention. He rigorously tests fundamental assumptions in public health policy, and develops innovative, cost, and operationally effective strategic concepts to prevent dengue and other important infectious diseases of humans. He has published more than 240 research articles, reviews, and book chapters.”
Scott co-founded the Center for Vector-Borne Research (CVEC), comprised of researchers throughout the UC System; directed the UC Davis Arbovirus Research Unit; and served as vice chair of the UC Davis Entomology Department.
He is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and a member since 1983. He chaired the ESA's Section on Medical and Veterinary Entomology; and served on the American Committee for Entomology and the American Committee on Arthropod-Borne Viruses in the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. He organized the Medical and Veterinary Entomology section of the XXI International Congress of Entomology in Iguassu, Brazil.
Highly regarded by his peers and associates, Scott is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, as well as ESA. He served as a National Research Council Associate in Bangkok, Thailand; is a past president of the Society for Vector Ecology; and chairs the Mosquito Modeling Group in the program on Research and Policy in Infectious Disease Dynamics (modelers and vector-borne disease specialists who report to the Science and Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security, and the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health).
The UC Davis medical entomologist chairs activities on vector control for the Partnership for Dengue Control, serves on several committees for the World Health Organization, and is an editor for the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Journal of Insect Science, and Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
Scott is known for his expertise and enthusiasm in drawing undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral associates and researchers to his world-class lab, said project scientist Amy Morrison of the Scott lab's Iquitos Project, Peru. “He has a special ability to push, persuade, and coax me to transform a good idea into a methodological and operational reality, and he has recognized my abilities and value in this regard. He has had an enduring and significant impact on our understanding of dengue and Aedes aegypti ecology.”
In addition to his major accomplishments, “part of Dr. Scott's legacy,” she said, “is bringing together multidisciplinary teams to understand transmission of arboviral diseases and to use that information to shift and shape disease control strategies.”
Scott's world-class research lab received nearly $10 million in grants in 2014 to study dengue. He is the principal investigator of the multi-year grants: $7.5 million from the National Institutes of Health and $2.2 million from Notre Dame University.
Dengue drew international attention in 2013 when Scott and colleagues published research indicating that dengue is three times more prevalent than originally thought--more than triple WHO's estimate of 50 to 100 million. The researchers assembled known records of dengue occurrence worldwide and used a formal modelling framework to map the global distribution of dengue risk. They then paired the resulting risk map with detailed longitudinal information from dengue cohort studies and population surfaces to infer the public health burden of dengue in 2010.
The list of UC Davis-affiliated scientists who have received the C. W. Woodworth Award:
2015: Thomas W. Scott
2014: James R. Carey
2011: Frank Zalom
2010: Walter Leal
2009: Charles Summers
1999: Harry Kaya
1991: Thomas Leigh
1987: Robert Washino
1981: Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.
1978: William Harry Lange
The Woodworth Award, first presented in 1969, recognizes a PBSA member for outstanding accomplishments in entomology. The award memorializes noted entomologist Charles W. Woodworth (1865-1940), who founded the UC Berkeley Department of Entomology and participated in the development of the Agricultural Experiment Station at UC Davis, and as such, he is considered the founder of the UC Davis entomology department. Woodworth made numerous valuable contributions to entomology during his career. Among his publications, he is especially known for A List of the Insects of California (1903), The Wing Veins of Insects (1906), Guide to California Insects (1913),and "School of Fumigation" (1915). He was the first editor and first contributor to the University of California's publications in entomology.
Advocating the responsible use of pesticides, Woodworth proposed and drafted the first California Insecticide Law in 1906. He was an authority on the eradication of the codling moth, peach twig-borer, citrus insects, grasshoppers and citrus white fly. Woodworth received both his bachelor's degree (1885) and a master's degree (1886) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The Pacific Branch of ESA encompasses 11 U.S. states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming); several U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands; and parts of Canada and Mexico.
Related Links:
Thomas Scott Named Distinguished Professor
Thomas Scott Lab Receives Two Major Grants for Dengue Research
List of C. W. Woodworth Recipients
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
NEWS BRIEF: April 8, 2014
UC Riverside went on to win the championship, defeating Washington State University, Pullman, Wash. Both the winning team and the runner-up team will represent the Pacific Branch at the ESA meeting, Nov. 16-19 in Portland, Ore. The winning ream receives $500 to offset travel expenses. President of the ESA is integrated pest management specialist Frank Zalom, professor of entomology at UC Davis.
At the 2013 PBESA meeting, UC Riverside took first, and UC Davis, second.
The 2014 UC Davis team members, advised by Extension specialist Larry Godfrey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who participated in the semi-finals were:
- Matan Shelomi, doctoral student who studies with major professor Lynn Kimsey
- Mohammad-Amir Aghaee, doctoral student who studies with major professor Larry Godfrey
- Rei Scampavia, doctoral candidate in the Edwin Lewis and Neal Williams lab
- Alexander Nguyen, an undergraduate student majoring in entomology who is an undergraduate researcher in the Bruce Hammock lab
- Alternate: Danny Klittich, doctoral student who studies with Michael Parrella (Klittich is also president of the Entomologiy Graduate Student Association (EGSA)
In the preliminary competition, Klittich served as a team member with Shelomi, Aghaee, and Nguyen.
The Linnaean Games is a lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competition on entomology-based facts with four-member teams. Each must be in a degree program (bachelor's, master's or doctorate) or have completed a degree within one year of the contest.
Each team scores points by correctly answering a question posed by the moderator. There are two types of questions: toss-ups and bonuses, with each question worth 10 points.
One of the questions in the preliminary games: "Edward Knipling developed a new insect control technique. What was the insect he worked?"
Answer: "Primarily the screwworm fly with the sterile insect technique (SIT)."
Among the other questions asked of the various teams:
Question: What three hexapod orders comprise the "entognatha?"
Answer: Protura, Collembola and Diplura.
Question: Who is the current ESA President?
Answer: Frank Zalom
Question: What is the Arizona state Insect?
Answer: The two-tailed swallowtail butterfly, Papilio multicaudata
Question: Who wrote the poem "To A Louse," which opens with this stanza:
"Ha! whaur ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho', faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place."
Answer: Robert Burns.
UC Riverside correctly answered the Arizona state insect question in the UCR-WSU championship match. UCR also answered the entognatha question, although UC Davis knew the answer, too.
The Zalom question was asked during another two teams' match.
The Burns question was a bonus for UC Davis, but the team did not know the answer.
Related Links:
Results of 2013 PBESA Linnaean Games
2013 ESA Competition
2013 ESA Videos