Names in the News

Greg Gibbs is UC ANR's new executive director of Development Services, effective July 1, 2021. He succeeds Lorna Krkich, who retired on April 2.

Gibbs has served as the director of major gifts at UC ANR since 2017. He brings more than 15 years of fund development expertise with 11 years at UC Davis before joining UC ANR. Over the past few years, the Development Services team has been generating approximately $3 million to $5 million annually through new endowments, capital campaigns, giving days and many other new donor relationships

Gibbs is based at the UC ANR building in Davis and can be reached at glgibbs@ucanr.edu and (530) 848-7860.

Murillo-Barrick named ag land coordinator in San Joaquin Valley

Cristina Murillo-Barrick joined UC Cooperative Extension as an agricultural land acquisitions academic coordinator II on July 15, 2021. She will serve Fresno, Merced and Tulare counties.

In her new role with UCCE, Murillo-Barrick will support the mission of California's Sustainable Agricultural Land Conservation Program (SALC) to fight climate change by protecting productive farmland. Collaborating with the Strategic Growth Council and the Department of Conservation, she will provide local and regional planning agencies, land trusts, nonprofits, landowners and other stakeholders with input on critical land use issues, strategies and opportunities. This work will involve actively engaging partners, providing technical expertise and enhancing capacity of underserved communities.

Prior to joining UC ANR, Murillo-Barrick has been an environmental science educator at
Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Yosemite National Park and Shenandoah National Park, trained ecotourism guides, and volunteered for programs in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

Last year she and Clare Gupta, UC Cooperative Extension specialist, teamed up with California Institute for Rural Studies and the Community Water Center to produce the podcast Water is Gold: How Central Valley Communities are Still Fighting the Drought. This work was part of a National Science Foundation-funded multidisciplinary research project that examined the effects of groundwater, drought and climate change.

She earned an M.A. in geography, M.S. in community development, B.A. in international relations, and B.A. in Spanish, all from UC Davis. She is fluent in Spanish and trained in both translation and interpretation. Within this position, Murillo-Barrick said she hopes to “support, amplify and expand efforts to achieve agricultural sustainability and address climate change within California's most impacted communities. A fundamental piece of this work will involve providing sound technical assistance while centering on equity, antiracism and language justice.”

Murillo-Barrick is headquartered in Fresno and can be reached at (559) 458-6193 and cmurillo@ucanr.edu.

Gautam named area citrus IPM advisor

Sandipa Gautam joined UC Cooperative Extension as an area citrus integrated pest management advisor, on July 12, 2021.

Prior to accepting the UCCE advisor position, Gautam was an assistant research entomologist in the UC Riverside Department of Entomology. Since 2016 she had worked with UCCE specialist Beth Grafton-Cardwell at Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center leading a research group that works on IPM in citrus. She has studied fungal feeding mites Lorryia formosa and Tarsonemus bakeri, California red scale, Asian citrus psyllid and the efficacy of treatments against arthropod pests of export concern.

She earned a Ph.D. and M.S. both in entomology from Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, and a B.S. in agriculture from Tribhuvan University of Nepal.

Gautam is headquartered at Lindcove Research and Extension Center and can be reached at sangautam@ucanr.edu. Follow her on Twitter at @gautamsandipa.

 

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