- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Students of UC Davis Distinguished Professor James R. Carey of the Department of Entomology and Nematology recently swept all three awards in the 2023 Norma J. Lang Prize for Undergraduate Information Research in the category of Science, Engineering and Mathematics (SEM).
Carey, praised for his innovative teaching and writing approaches, each year encourages his students to submit their term papers, work accomplished in his classes, in the Lang Prize competition. Carey students are frequent winners, but this is the first year his students swept all three awards in the SEM category. Since 2020, a Carey student has won eight of the 13 awards, including four consecutive first-place SEM awards.
The Lang Prize, launched in 2017 to encourage the use of library resources and to reward the best research papers, memorializes Norma J. Lang (1931-2015), professor emerita of botany, who taught at UC Davis from 1963 to 1991.
This year's SEM winners are Jenna Schafer, first place with a $1000 prize; Sarah Shores, second, $750; and Neha Gondra, third, $500. Maram Saada, a former student in Carey's longevity class who won the 2022 first-place SEM award, also won this year's Arts, Humanity and Social Sciences (AHSS) category.
Jenna Schafer, First Place
Schafer's winning SEM category paper, “Timeout with Torpor: History, Biology and Future Medical Applications of a Survival Strategy,” was a research project for the Entomology 199 course (Special Study): Hibernation Writing Project. Her 19-page paper included a summary, introduction, background, history, synthetic torpor induction, medical applications, discussion and literature cited.
In her summary, Schafer wrote: “As human lifespans increase, technological advances push forward to continue this trend, and human torpor has entered the discussion as a mode to improve longevity, especially by reducing patient mortality. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize literature regarding humanity's history with hibernation, to discuss potential methods to induce torpor in humans, and to determine if there may be an ethical future for this historical survival mechanism in modern medicine to increase patient longevity.”
Reflecting on the project, Schafer noted: “When I joined Dr. Carey's Hibernation Writing Project, I was assigned the topic ‘Human Torpor: Historical, Accidental, and Medical.' I started the research process under the false pretense that I could simply skip over the background-gathering phase since I already had a topic. While I have written research papers in the past, none have been quite as robust as this project, and it turned into an extremely rewarding learning experience, but I soon realized how important background information is to understand what terms to use and how to piece them together for effective searching. Suffice it to say, my search strategies evolved continuously throughout this project as I gained more skills and a deeper understanding of the search tools I am privileged to have at my disposal as a UC Davis student.”
Shores submitted her paper on “Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: Differences of Sex Development.”
“The development of biological sex is a complex process involving the interaction of chromosomes, gonads, and hormones,” Shores wrote in her summary. “Within these processes, differences/disorders of sex development can occur, which can result in an individual's chromosomes not aligning with their external/internal genitalia and/or gonads. One of these disorders is androgen insensitivity syndrome, an XY disorder of sex development that occurs during fetal development where the androgens required to develop the male internal and external genitalia goes undetected or partially undetected, resulting in and individual having XY sex chromosomes and female, ambiguous, or male external genitalia, depending on the severity of androgen insensitivity. This condition is not always identified at birth, but individuals with this condition are expected to have a normal lifespan.”
Reflecting on the paper, Shores said she wrote it in the fall quarter of 2022 as a term paper for Carey's longevity class. “The term paper was assigned in the beginning of the quarter to provide students the opportunity to practice skills related to researching and writing scientific research papers. The topic could be of the student's choosing so as long it was related to longevity and/or health. Immediately I knew that I wanted to write about an intersex condition since as a congenital disorder, it can encompass both health and life span.” She said she consulted Carey about the “relevance of my topic…as well as the general structure.”
Neha Gondra's third-place paper, Evaluating the Influence of the Mediterranean Diet on Reducing Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in Obese Individuals, dealt with obesity.
“Obesity affects a significant proportion of the United States adult population,” she wrote in defining the purpose of the paper. “With the condition of obesity comes an increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVD) such as atherosclerosis and myocardial infarction, among others. Adherence to healthy diets is recommended by healthcare providers to reduce weight loss and CVD risk through the consumption of essential nutrients. The Mediterranean Diet and reduced caloric intake of the Standard American Diet (SAD) are often followed by those who are overweight or obese to reduce weight and promote health.”
Gondra reflected that she wanted “to evaluate the influence of the Mediterranean diet on reducing cardiovascular disease risk factors in obese individuals. But I had neither conducted a literature review before nor knew the guidelines for doing so. I greatly utilized a guidebook from the UC Davis Library by Helen Aveyaard titled ‘Doing a Literature Review in Health and Social Care.' I crafted a basic skeleton for my review from this book's advice. But to start with, I needed to begin reviewing primary and secondary research to create a research matrix and annotated bibliography, synthesizing information from multiple sources.”
In summarizing her work, Gondra said: “…seemed to be no significant difference between reduction of CVD risk due to the Mediterranean Diet and due to calorie restriction in SAD. Both methods seemed to reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride levels in the blood but quantitatively, the reduction of such levels was low. Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet was found to be inversely associated with CVD risk factor occurrence. Further clinical research needs to be conducted with larger sample sizes and effectively evaluating whether obese patients originally consuming SAD are better off with adhering in higher level to the Mediterranean Diet or reducing caloric intake in their existing diet.”
Arts, Humanity and Social Sciences
In the Arts, Humanity and Social Sciences category, Maram Saada won with her paper, “Beyond One-Course Competency for Addressing the Challenges of Multicultural Education and Advocacy in CSUs.” Second place went to Mikayli Moore, for her “Female Weightlifters' Presentation of Gender on Instagram.” Kiara Kunnes scored third with her paper, “Does the Nigerian Government's Response to Violent Conflict Exacerbate Civilians' Fear?”
UC Davis Distinguished Professor James R. Carey, a member of the UC Davis faculty since 1980 and an international award-winning teacher, instructs his students how to research topics, use style sheets, and structure documents.
His peers have singled him out for numerous awards, including the 2015 Distinguished Achievement in Teaching Award from the Entomological Society of America; and the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award from the UC Davis Academic Senate, given to internationally recognized professors who excel at teaching. Carey is globally recognized for his research in insect demography, mortality dynamics, and insect invasion biology.
Carey tells his students that they need to consider their research term paper requirement, not as merely "a writing assignment," but as "a production concept" involving a number of writing concepts and components:
- Writing video series. Carey \mandates that all his students view the 13-part video playlist he produced titled “How to Write a Research Term Paper.” The playlist—viewing time totals about an hour--covers technical aspects of term paper production, including best practices in word processing and typography as well as ethical writing (no plagiarism), researching, framing, drafting, editing, proofing and finalizing (Writing Instruction Playlist).
- Model papers. Just as all researchers can view example papers in journals, students also need models, too, Carey believes. He posts a term paper example, mocked up from his own writing, as well as links to all the award-winning student papers in the Lang Prize competition and such UC Davis student publications as Prized Writing and Aggie Transcripts.
- Technical fluency. Carey requires all students to learn best practices in both typography and word processing. Students must use exact 15-point spacing (not single or double), 11-point California FB typeface (not Times Roman), 1.5-inch page margins (for shorter lines) and, using style sheet tools, must create four formatting codes that cover 98 percent of the formatting—heading level 1, subheading level 2, body text and hanging paragraph. Submitted papers are not only technically uniform, but also possess an aesthetic beauty that Carey feels either consciously or sub-consciously inspires students to take pride of ownership that carries over to their efforts in other aspects of their paper. Carey requires his students to read and follow Butterick's Practical Typography.
Storytelling. Carey stresses storytelling as the overarching, unifying concept for writing a term paper, the basics of which are that the story must have structure (a beginning, a middle and an end), a voice (the student's) and character development (main theme or thread). The process of story development is inextricably linked to their paper development; once the story begins to form in a student's head and then on paper, the narrative flows more clearly, succinctly and with much less effort than a paper containing information “dumps.” - Writing and editing. Although Carey emphasizes the importance of producing clear, succinct and technically correct prose, he tells his students that this is only a part of the larger process concerned with a paper's structure and congruency.
Here are the first-place SEM winners from the Carey classrooms since 2020:
- 2020: Jessica Macaluso “The Biological Basis for Alzheimer's Disease.”
- 2021: Barry Nguyen, “Allostasis: The Fundamental Biology and Implications for Social Standing and Longevity.”
- 2022: Maram Saada, “Huntington's Disease: Etiology, Research Models and Treatment.”
- 2023: Jenna Schafer, "Timeout with Torpor: History, Biology and Future Medical Applications of a Survival Strategy."
Resources:
- How to Apply for Lang Prize
- Lang Prize Website by Kristin Burns, digital communications manager, UC Davis Library
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
His seminar begins at 4:10 p.m. and also will be on Zoom:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
Host is UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
"African Trypanosomiasis, also known as 'sleeping sickness,' is caused by microscopic parasites of the species Trypanosoma brucei," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "It is transmitted by the tsetse fly (Glossina species), which is found only in sub-Saharan Africa."
"Insect vectors attract small fractions of the funding spent on studying and controlling the diseases they transmit," Hargrove says in his abstract. "Emphasis on vector studies for tsetse (Glossina spp) have, however, resulted in several novel vector and disease control options. Experiments carried out over the past 60 years at Rekomitjie Research Station in the Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe, together with daily meteorological readings, provide a platform for studying the effects of climate change on the population dynamics of tsetse species occurring around Rekomitjie. Rates of pupal production and development, of abortion rates and of mortality among immature and adult stages of the flies are all highly correlated with temperature. Methods used to estimate such relationships in the field will be discussed and the relationships are used in explaining the sudden collapse in tsetse populations during the past decade, consequent on significant increases in temperature, particularly in the hot dry season."
Hargrove served as the inaugural director of the South African Centre for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis (SACEMA). The precursors for MMED and DAIDD were launched in 2006 at the beginning of his directorship; he has been involved continuously as an instructor in the program since, according to his biography on ICI3D. Over the past nearly 50 years, Hargrove has combined fieldwork and mathematical epidemiology to understand the population dynamics and control of tsetse flies, the vectors of human African Trypanosomiasis.
He focuses his current research on the modelling population dynamics, with a particular focus on how increasing temperatures in Africa will affect tsetse distribution. This work involves improving estimation of mortality in adult and immature stages of the fly. Since 1999, he has also focused on the analysis and modelling of data in the world of HIV. Current interest are in improving the use of biomarkers for the accurate estimation of HIV incidence.
He holds a bachelor's degree in zoology (1968) from the University of Oxford; a master's degree in biomathematics (1981) from UCLA, and a doctorate in insect physiology (1973) from the University of London.
Department seminar coordinator is urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor. For technical issues regarding Zoom connections, she may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu. (See complete list of spring seminars.)
Resource:
SERVIR--From Space to Tsetse Fly
World Health Organization: Trypanosomiasis (Human African Sleeping Sickness)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
In real life, incarcerated youth in central Africa's Nkongsamba Detention Facility in the Moungo Department of Cameroon, area pitch their agri-business proposals to AgriStars' distinguished panel of experts--including UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey of the Department of Entomology and Nematology--for monetary prizes and project mentoring.
AgriStars, a 2022 pilot program of the Agriculture for Africa (A4A), is the brainchild of global scholar Vijitha Mahadevan Eyango, a UC Davis-UCLA alumna and founder of A4A, a U.S. nongovernmental organization.
“AgriStars is a program implementing agricultural education curriculum with one of Africa's most marginalized groups—incarcerated youth,” Eyango said. “AgriStars is patterned after the values and missions of the Future Farmers of America and the 4-H programs.”
The inaugural competition, held in April, drew 100 applicants, with 25 advancing to the semi-finals and 10 named as winners. Their proposals ranged from pig farming to honey (beekeeping).
“For me, the single most interesting part of my involvement withAgriStars and particularly my serving on the judging panel was learning about many aspects of African agriculture, not from corporate perspectives, but directly from the young people who were trying to make a living in Cameroonian villages,” said Carey, who co-designed AgriStars with Eyango. He hatched the shark-tank concept, donated funds from his summer teaching salary, and served as a judge.
“It was truly a learning experience for me as AgriStar participants gave their pitches on a wide range of innovative ideas involving West African agriculture ranging from pig, chicken, and fish rearing to mushroom, honey and wine production," Carey said. "Inasmuch as the pitches were as interesting and entertaining as they were educational and enlightening, we are exploring the future possibility posting selected pitches on YouTube as a crowdfunding and thus self-sustaining enterprise.”
The Eyango Food Company, headed by CEO and Cameroon musician icon Prince Ndedi Eyango (Vijitha's husband), co-sponsored the event with A4A, AgriStars and UC Davis (Carey).
Carey recently participated in the certification of the second cohort of A4A Agripreneurs at the Nkongsamba prison, held some six months after the competition. The program included congratulatory speeches, native dances, a prison sports exhibition, and performances by celebrated singer-musician Prince Eyango, a Cameroonian singer, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer whose titles include “Best Artist of the Year."
“We drew local and national news media coverage, and interest of high-level politicians, the U.S. Embassy and others,” said Carey, who was among those delivering a congratulatory speech. He is a frequent visitor to Africa, where he delivers workshops and seminars as part of the Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa (CARTA).
UCLA distinguished professor Thomas Smith, director of the Congo Basin Institute (CBI), and a core advisor to A4A, introduced the two global educators--Eyango and Carey--in October 2021. “Our introduction jumpstarted a series of intense discussions,” Eyango recalled, “and by January 2022, we had co-designed AgriStars.”
They set out to “build capacity, confidence and business skills of entrepreneurial youth, develop new talents in the agriculture sector and serve as an opportunity to executive a winning agribusiness concept to win an opportunity for a cash prize and mentorship,” Eyango said.
In a UCLA article published June 12, 2022, David Colgan, director of communications for the UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, described A4A as a "program that teaches 25-and-younger incarcerated people in the fertile Nkongsamba region to farm--a skill that can help them stay out of prison once they leave...Resources are limited in Cameroon, which is home to a displaced population of 2 million seeking refuge from war and insecurity in neighboring countries including Chad, Central African Republic and Nigeria. Food insecurity is a big problem, and a root cause of crimes that land many young people in prison."
Core goals of A4A are "to give young people marketable skills to keep them from returning to jail," Colgan pointed out. The participants gain "an improved sense of self-worth, confidence and the ability to see a better future."
Thus, the birth of the A4A offspring, AgriStars.
The inaugural AgriStars' competition was open not only to incarcerated youth, but to all youth in the Nkongsamba, so as not to incentivize stints in prison in order to apply, the organizers said. Most AgriStars participants were serving time for minor crimes, mainly theft.
Eyango credits Carey as being “instrumental in its success and is our UC Davis partner. His institutional commitment enabled A4A to elicit regional and local government and private sector co-sharing a sponsorship.”
A 1987 graduate of UC Davis,Eyango received her bachelor's degree in international relations and affairs. She went on to obtain two degrees atUCLA: her master's degree in African studies and urban planning (1990) and her doctorate (1995) in international and comparative education (1995). As a member of the UCLA faculty, she taught international development studies for 10 years (1995-2001 and 2014-2018). Between 2009-2014 she served as chief of education with UNICEF, Cameroon.
Eyango's career includes administrative positions in UNICEF (United Nations' Children's Fund), USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) and IREX, a nonprofit global development and educational organization. For her global efforts, Eyango received the prestigious Swanee Hunt Award for Advancing Women's Role in Policy Formulation in 2004 from the U. S. State Department. She also won commendation awards from former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and from President Bill Clinton.
Carey, a 42-year member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty, is known as an innovative teacher. Over the last decade, he has developed a technological-savvy teaching program, a groundbreaking model for 21st Century instruction using short, concise videos. He teaches administrators, faculty, staff, and students how to create the succinct videos, and how to record seminars. All are geared toward ease of learning and increased knowledge retention.
(For more information, watch the AgriStars video that Carey created.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The video guidebook showcases the 480-page textbook, Biodemography: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods (Princeton University Press, 2020), co-authored by Deborah Roach, professor and chair of the University of Virginia's Department of Biology. Carey and Roach define the pioneering field of biodemography as “integrating biology, mathematics and demography.”
The video guidebook, now online on the UC Berkeley Population Sciences website, is unique in that never before has a scientific textbook author produced, scripted and narrated videos that encompass a book's entire content. The playlist includes 175 separate presentations, closed captioned in English and subtitled through YouTube in 300 different languages. The video guidebook covers the contents of his entire biodemography book with video modules on content ranging from life tables, mortality models and reproduction to stable population theory, matrix models and applied demography. He also has several dozen videos on best practices in visualization and presentation strategies.
Carey, a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty since 1980 and a senior scholar with the UC Berkeley Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA), opted to create the video playbook because “we believe the contents should be available to anyone interested in any aspect of biodemography regardless of their access to the book or their primary language.”
Carey is a fellow of four professional societies: the Entomological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Gerontological Society of America. He is former director (2003-13) of a 11-university consortium funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIH/P01) on the evolutionary ecology of lifespan.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The students, along with the three winners in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences category, received their awards at a recent ceremony in the UC Davis Shields Library Courtyard.
A paper written by Maram Saada, a student in a longevity class taught by UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey, won first place in the SEM category and a $1000 prize. Saada's research paper, “Huntington's Disease: Etiology, Research Models and Treatment,” is now online. It will be published in eScholarship, an open-access scholarly publishing service affiliated with the University of California.
Second place in the SEM category went to Jocelyn Chu, a student in a medical entomology class taught by assistant professor Geoffrey Attardo, for her paper, “Vector-borne Disease Control Plan for West Nile Virus in California.” She received $750.
Two of Carey's students, Jessica Hevener and David Vo, tied for third place in the SEM category. Hevener, of Carey's longevity class, submitted her paper on “The Impact of Maternal Obesity on Maternal and Offspring Health,” while Vo, enrolled in a special study class for advanced undergraduates, entered his paper on “Surviving the Cold: How Circumpolar Peoples Have Adapted to the Extreme Conditions of the Arctic Entomology." They shared the third-prize award of $500.
The Lang Prize competition recognizes students who make exceptional use of library resources and services — such as primary source materials and special collections, online databases and journal articles; inter-library loan services, or consulting with a librarian, according to Alesia McManus, chair of the Lang Prize for Undergraduate Information Research and head of student services, UC Davis Shields Library.
In a earlier news release, McManus announced that “It was a strong pool of applications, with 17 out of the 21 applications meeting the average 39.99 score threshold for being considered for an award." The Lang Prize honors the legacy of professor emeritus and plant biologist Norma Lang, 1931-2015, a member of the faculty from 1963 to 1991.
UC Davis Distinguished Professor James R. Carey. Carey, a member of the UC Davis entomology faculty since 1980, instructs undergraduates in his classes--which usually exceed 200 students--how to research topics, use style sheets, and structure their papers. He has produced 13 videos on how to research and write a research paper, along with a new video on the use of style sheets.
Highly honored by his peers for his teaching expertise, Carey received the Entomological Society of America's 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award; a 2018 Robert Foster Cherry Award from Baylor University, which presents international teaching awards; and the UC Davis Academic Senate's 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award, an honor given to internationally recognized professors who excel at teaching.
Carey is considered the preeminent global authority on arthropod demography. He directed the multidisciplinary, 11-institution, 20-scientist program, “Biodemographic Determinants of Lifespan,” which garnered more than $10 million in funding from the National Institute on Aging from 2003 to 2013.
Assistant Professor Geoffrey Attardo. UC Davis medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in 2017 from the Yale School of Public Health's Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, is a global expert on vectorborne diseases, and renowned for his groundbreaking work on tsetse flies. The Attardo lab monitors the dynamics of vector insects at the levels of physiology, population genetics and environmental interactions.
Attardo, who won the 2022 Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology (MUVE) Award from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America, “excels not only as a researcher, but as a teacher, mentor, scientific illustrator, macro photographer,videographer and science communicator,” said UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock in his letter of nomination for the MUVE Award. Attardo drew praise for his "highly effective teaching style in helping students build critical thinking skills and confidence."
The 2022 winners of the Lang Prizes in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences category are Joyce Do, Annie Miyadi, and Sarah Grimes. (See more on Shields Library website.)
