- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Walsh is known internationally for his research on the modes of action and resistance mechanisms of acaricides on spider mites and regionally in the Pacific Northwest for his extension and outreach efforts on specialty crops," ESA announced in a news release, citing that:
"Walsh has maintained a well-funded (more than $30 million) and productive program as the research director of the Environmental and Agricultural Entomology Laboratory located at the WSU Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in the Yakima Valley near Prosser, Washington. Walsh is the Extension integrated pest management (IPM) coordinator for Washington State and the Washington State liaison representative to the U.S. Department of Agriculture IR-4 Project."
"Walsh has an extensive and varied integrated pest and pollinator management research and Extension program assisting regionally important commodities including hops, alfalfa, grapes, and mint. Walsh also directs environmental impact studies on alfalfa leafcutting and alkali bees, the key pollinators of alfalfa produced for seed. Walsh's efforts in IPM have resulted in the documented reduction of over 100,000 pounds of insecticide use in the Pacific Northwest annually."
Born in New York in 1963 and a resident of California since 1969, Walsh holds a bachelor's degree in biology from UC Santa Cruz (1985). He received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1998, studying with major professor Frank Zalom, who went on to become a UC Davis distinguished professor and president and Honorary Member of ESA. "He is very deserving," Zalom said. "I couldn't be more proud of all that he has accomplished."
Said Walsh: "I was Frank's first PhD student. Frank had one before me, Rachid Hanna. Frank picked up Rachid when Rachid was orphaned when his original professor left UC Davis. Rachid and I quibble about who was Frank's first student. I'm the first that went from start to finish with Frank."
"(Professors) Sean Duffy and Harry Kaya were also on my PhD committee," Walsh said.
Kaya remembers Walsh well. "He was studying integrated pest management at UC Davis and was an outstanding graduate student in Frank Zalom's lab," Kaya said. "Even as a graduate student, he published some significant papers on IPM research, and I had no doubt that he would excel in research in his post graduate years. He has not only done superb IPM research but has been a leader in the Entomological Society of America as well as other national and international organizations. He richly deserves being elected as an ESA Fellow."
Walsh, Zalom and Dean Helene Dillard of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, then Extension director at Cornell, spent three weeks together on a USDA-sponsored agricultural extension tour of China.
Walsh joined the WSU Department of Entomology as assistant professor in 1998 and advanced to associate professor in 2003 and to professor in 2007. The author of more than 200 publications, he annually delivers more than 35 Extension presentations. He has mentored 12 doctoral students and 11 master's degree students.
Walsh served as president of the Pacific Branch of ESA (PBESA) in 2010 and represented PBESA on the ESA governing board from 2013 through 2019. Among his ESA awards: Excellence in IPM Award and he led two teams that received the IPM Team Award.
Walsh's WSU awards include the Sahlin Award for Outreach and Engagement, the Excellence in Extension Award, the Team Interdisciplinary Award, and the Excellence in Integrated Research and Extension Award.
For his work in the hops industry, the International Hop Growers Bureau knighted him into of the Order of the Hop (Chevalier) in 2017.
A WSU news story (Sept. 7, 2023) related that Walsh has "worked primarily on pest control issues, mostly on hops, grape vines, mint, and alfalfa. One of his first successes at WSU in 2005 involved developing a novel method for controlling cutworms, which climb up from the soil in spring to nibble on grapevine buds."
Walsh initially set out to become a botanist. “I was working in a local Extension office in California after I got my bachelor's degree," he told the WSU writer Scott Weybright. "That work involved battling spider mites on strawberries. I kind of fell into entomology, but I love the work and the creative solutions we find to help growers."
Another reason he wanted to become an entomologist: job security. He told Weybright that there are five-to-ten entomology jobs for every botany job. “We as humans are very efficient at moving pests around,” Walsh added. “There is always going to be a new pest and a need for someone to figure out how to best fight it.”
His wife, Catherine (Kikie) is a senior software engineer with Altera Digital, a hospital software firm. The couple, married 35 years, raised three children, Claire, Russ, and Jeff, all WSU grads. Claire is the lifecycle marketing manager with Niantic Labs; Russ is working toward his master's degree in teaching at WSU Tri-Cities: and Jeff is a site reliability engineer at TikTok.
Others named 2023 ESA Fellows are:
- Cassandra Extavour, Harvard University
- James Hagler, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service
- Alvin M. Simmons, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service
- Lukasz Stelinski, University of Florida
- Edward L. Vargo, Texas A&M University
The six will be honored during Entomology 2023: Insects and Influence: Advancing Entomology's Impact on People and Policy, set Nov. 5-8, in National Harbor, Md.
ESA, founded in 1889, is a worldwide organization of more than 7000 members, who are affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. Members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists.
Resources:
- A Career Battling Pests Leads to National Honor for Scientist (Sept. 7, 2023, Washington State University)
- WSU Showcase Award, YouTube, 2017
- ESA's 2023 Fellow Awards, Entomological Society of America.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The ESA governing board elected Rosenheim and nine other entomologists as Fellows for their outstanding contributions in research, teaching, extension and outreach, administration or the military. The Fellows' Class of 2020, comprised of five men and five women, will be recognized at ESA's virtual annual meeting, Entomology 2020, Nov. 11-25.
"Jay's substantial contributions to basic and applied entomology are world-renowned, and clearly merit his election as a Fellow of the ESA," said Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Rosenheim, who joined the UC Davis entomology faculty in 1990, is internationally known for his research on the ecology of insect parasitoids and predators, insect reproductive behavior, and the application of big data, or "ecoinformatics," methods in agricultural entomology.
“Rosenheim's work has shown that the structure of insect communities is more complex than the archetypal model of three discretetrophic levels, under which predators eat only herbivores and herbivores eat only plants," ESA wrote in a news release. "Instead, widespread predator-predator interactions (intraguild predation), omnivory, and cannibalism create rich and diverse dynamics that can either enhance or disrupt biological control. Rosenheim has also worked to introduce big data techniques to agricultural entomology. By harnessing the decentralized data gathering efforts of farmers, field scouts, and consultants, large data sets can be created and analyzed to reveal important relationships between pests, natural enemies, and crop performance. Rosenheim's research has also examined how organisms evolve to balance multiple factors that can emerge as limits to reproductive success, and how this shapes insect and plant reproductive traits.”
Rosenheim and two other faculty members of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology--associate professors Louie Yang and Joanna Chiu-- are co-founders and co-directors of the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology, a mentored research program for undergraduates. Founded in 2011, the program has now trained more than 100 undergraduate researchers.
A native of Yorktown, N.Y, where he developed an interest in biology while exploring the vernal pools behind his Hudson River Valley home, Rosenheim holds a bachelor's degree in entomology from UC Davis (1983) and a doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley (1987). Rosenheim served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii, and then studied as a Fulbright junior researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
The UC Davis distinguished professor has authored more than 160 peer-reviewed publications. In 2009, he was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Highly honored for his teaching and mentoring, Rosenheim received teaching awards from the Associated Students of UC Davis and the UC Davis Academic Senate, and the 2018 Distinguished Student Mentoring Award from the Pacific Branch, ESA. He has mentored 34 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who are pursuing careers in the private sector, conservation nonprofits, journalism, and academia.
When he was nominated for the Pacific Branch award, his former students praised him for his excellence, kindness and dedication. The awards packet included such comments as “best teacher on campus,” “kind and patient,” and “someone who cares about us and our future.” A former graduate student described Rosenheim as a “successful scientist with a brilliant and inquisitive mind.” Another wrote that he is “one of the most dedicated and effective teachers” he's ever encountered. The ultimate compliment: “Someday I hope to be able to teach and inspire students as well as Jay does.” The Pacific Branch represents 11 states, seven U.S. territories, and parts of Canada and Mexico.
Rosenheim, named a UC Davis distinguished professor in 2018, joined ESA in 1983. He serves on the editorial board of the journals Biological Control and Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, and as a subject-matter editor of Ecology and Ecological Monographs.
Locally, he serves as the volunteer faculty representative for the Jepson Prairie Preserve, a Dixon-area site renowned for its vernal pools. The preserve is owned by the Solano Land Trust, which manages the site with UC Davis, the Nature Conservancy and Jepson Prairie Docents.
Rosenheim and his wife, Shulamit Glazerman, are the parents of four children: Hillel, 20, a student at the State University of New York (SUNY) Binghamton; Leah, 18, soon to begin her studies at SUNY Binghamton; and Eitan, 16, and Meirav, 14 of the family home in Davis.
Other newly elected ESA Fellows are
- Carol Anelli, professor, Department of Entomology and the Honors and Scholars Program at Ohio State University
- Carolina Barillas-Mury, head of the Mosquito Immunity and Vector Competence Section, National Institutes of Health, and formerly with Colorado State University
- David Dame, former medical entomologist with the Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and a former independent consultant
- Richard Hellmich, lead scientist with the USDA–ARS, Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research Laboratory, and affiliate professor of entomology, Iowa State University
- Philip Koehler, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of Florida
- Catherine Loudon, vice chair and senior lecturer, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, UC Irvine
- Corrie Moreau, Martha N. and John C. Moser Professor of Arthropod Biosystematics and Biodiversity at Cornell University in the Departments of Entomology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Ithaca, N.Y.
- James Truman, emeritus professor of biology, University of Washington (UW); former group leader at the Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Northern Virginia; and now a UW researcher at the Friday Harbor Laboratories, San Juan Island, Puget Sound.
- Susan Weller, director of the University of Nebraska State Museum and professor of entomology at University of Nebraska–Lincoln
ESA, founded in 1889 and headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, is the world's largest organization serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. Its members are affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. See list of ESA Fellows.
(ESA contributed to this news story)
