- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
He will present his in-person seminar at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. It also will be virtual; the Zoom link is https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/99515291076.
"Twenty years ago while attempting to develop a new concept for studying insect aging in the wild, I discovered a previously unknown mathematical identity now referred to in the formal demography literature as the eponym Carey's Equality—the age distribution of a stationary population equals the distribution of lifetimes yet to come," Professor Carey says in his abstract. "In this seminar I will present my attempts at both operationalizing the concept for study of populations of insects and other non-human species, and generalizing it for applications to groups with fixed numbers of members and where renewal involves birth and death processes."
"These general applications include data from a British cemetery, the National Basketball Association, the Baltimore Longitudinal Health Study, the U.S. Congress (both chambers) and the world population," said Carey, a member of the UC Davs Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty since 1980. "After discussing implications and extensions of the identity, I will wrap up with descriptions of five simple but important demographic relations that all entomologists should know."
Highly honored for his research, teaching and public service, Carey served as the principal investigator of a 10-year, $10 million federal grant on “Aging in the Wild,” encompassing 14 scientists at 11 universities.
Biodemography Textbook. In 2020, he and Deborah Roach, professor and chair of the University of Virginia's Department of Biology, co-authored a 480-page textbook, Biodemography: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods, published by Princeton University Press and hailed as the “definitive textbook for the emerging field of biodemography, integrating biology, mathematics and demography.” Carey recently created a free-access, video guidebook with a playlist of 175 separate presentations, subtitled in 300 different languages. He storyboarded the script, turned graphs, schematics, tables and equations into animated slides, and then with teleprompter assistance, narrated and video-recorded the 175 presentations, which span 12 hours of viewing. It appears on UC Berkeley Population Sciences website at https://bit.ly/3FTge7u.
An internationally recognized teacher, Carey won a 2018 global award in the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching Program, an academic competition sponsored every two years by Baylor University, Waco, Texas. He received the 2015 Distinguished Achievement in Teaching Award from the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award from the Pacific Branch of ESA. The UC Davis Academic Senate honored him as the recipient of its 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award, given to internationally recognized professors who excel at teaching.
Carey is a fellow of four organizations: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Entomological Society of America, California Academy of Science and the Gerontological Society of America. He holds a doctorate in entomology (1980) from UC Berkeley, and two degrees from Iowa State University: a bachelor of science degree in animal biology (1973) and a master's degree in entomology (1975).
Nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, coordinates the spring seminars. He may be reached at ssiddique@ucdavis.edu for any technical issues regarding Zoom.
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS--Entomologist James R. Carey, distinguished professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is the recipient of a UC Davis Academic Senate Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award for his “outstanding research, outreach and advocacy program involving invasion biology, specifically his significant contributions on two California insect pest invaders, the Mediterranean Fruit Fly (medfly) and the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM).”
Carey will be honored at a combined Academic Senate/Academic Federation awards ceremony on Tuesday, May 5 in the Student Community Center. The event will take place from 5:15 to 7:45 p.m. Other 2014-15 recipients of the Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award are Harry Cheng, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering; and Robert Powell, professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.
“His public service led to much-needed in-depth discussions and greater understanding of these two agricultural pests; saved California millions in cancelled ineffective programs; and focused national and worldwide attention on how to deal with invasive pests,” wrote nominator Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
An internationally recognized leader and distinguished scholar in invasion biology, spanning three decades, Carey launched an informed, concerted and widespread effort to reveal the science about the invaders that threaten California's $43.5 billion agricultural industry. Carey's well-documented research in basic and applied aspects of invasion biology shows that these pests are established and cannot be eradicated. They continue to spread, despite more than 30 years of intervention and nearly 300 state-sponsored eradication programs.
In his letter of nomination, Parrella wrote that Carey exemplifies what public service, based on sound science, is all about: integrity, dedication, commitment, enthusiasm, and an eagerness to investigate, serve and share. Carey, who holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley, joined the UC Davis faculty in 1980.
Carey has published his research in major journals, served on the governor-appointed California Medfly Science Advisory Panel, testified before the U.S. Congress and California state legislators and to other government entities; held workshops with citizenry; developed and disseminated information; and granted more than 200 interviews with major print and electronic news media, including the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Science. Carey drew state, national and international attention with his groundbreaking paper documenting medfly establishment in California in a 1991 edition of Science, and more recently, with the LBAM invasion.
Carey's public service includes:
Carey testified about the biology and establishment of LBAM to the California Legislature, California Assembly Agriculture Committee, California Senate Environmental Quality Committee, San Francisco Board of Supervisors, California Roundtable for Agriculture and the Environment, Senator Migden hearings, Nancy Pelosi staff meetings, and California Senate Committee on Food and Agriculture. His expertise continues to be highly sought. He collaborated with colleagues Bruce Hammock and Frank Zalom, both distinguished professors in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, to write to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to point out (1) a lack of evidence that this method would work and (2) that LBAM is not an important pest.
In landmark research (“From Trickle to Flood: The Large-Scale, Cryptic Invasion of California by Tropical Fruit Flies”) published in August 2013 in Proceedings of the Royal Society, Carey and his colleagues (Nikos Papadopoulos, University of Thessaly, Richard Plant, UC Davis) found that at least five fruit flies and as many as nine species of the 17 they studied are permanently established in California and cannot be eradicated.
In July, Carey and Papadopoulos presented the results of this study to an international group of fruit fly entomologists (Tephritid Workers of Europe, Africa and the Middle East) in Crete. One of his papers, “Clear, Present, Significant and Imminent Danger: Questions for the California Light Brown Apple Moth (Epiphyas postvittana) Technical Working Group,” published in October 2013 in the journal American Entomologist, continues to draw worldwide attention. The journal Science sent a reporter to UC Davis to write a major, three-page news story on Dr. Carey's involvement in medfly and LBAM science policy.
Carey is also considered the preeminent global authority on arthropod demography. He has authored more than 250 scientific articles.
Carey is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), 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.
His past public service includes chair of the University of California Systemwide Committee on Research Policy; member of the systemwide UC Academic Council; and vice chair of his department. He presently serves as the associate editor of three journals: Genus, Aging Cell, and Demographic Research.
Carey is also known for his digital technical expertise on the UC Davis campus, providing advice and recommendations to key UC Davis administration on educational and information technology in support of instruction, research, administration and public service. He is the adviser of the nine-university CARTA (Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa).
Highly honored by his peers, Carey received the 2014 C. W. Woodworth Award, the highest award given by the Pacific Branch of ESA, and a 2014 Academic Senate Undergraduate Teaching Award. He was selected a plenary speaker for ICE 2016, the XXV International Congress of Entomology, to meet Sept. 25-30, 2016 in Orlando, Fla.
Related Links:
James R. Carey Faculty Website
Description of the Award (Download PDF)
Past Recipients of Distinguished Scholarly Achievement Award (Download PDF)
See Video About James R. Carey's Work and the Work of the Other 2015 Recipients
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
News Brief: March 16, 2013
The New York Times' report focuses on how the state "handled Mefly scares going back more than three decades," wrote Clyde Haberman.
The article begins:
"Ceratitis capitata. To a Muggle's ears, it sounds like an incantation from a Hogwarts wizard. If only the matter were whimsical.
Ceratitis capitata may be better known by its nonscientific name: the Mediterranean fruit fly, or Medfly to its friends. Only the Medfly has no friends, certainly not among fruit and vegetable growers, and certainly not among anyone interested in reasonably priced produce undamaged by these insects, whose eggs, hatched under the skin of, say, a tomato or a peach, develop into larvae that feast on the pulp. California, the nation's fruit basket, with a $40-billion-a-year agricultural industry, feels especially vulnerable. How that state has handled Medfly scares going back more than three decades is the focus of the latest installment of Retro Report, a series of documentary videos that take a second look at major news stories from the past."
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