Posts Tagged: Kim Ingram

Names in the News

Pearsons joins UCCE as small farm advisor 

Kirsten Pearsons joined UC Cooperative Extension on March 1 as a small farm advisor for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. She is developing research and extension programs focused on integrating soil health practices and pest management strategies for small-scale farmers and specialty crops.

Prior to joining UC ANR, Pearsons was a postdoctoral researcher at the nonprofit Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where she focused on studying and promoting organic and regenerative agriculture. She worked on Rodale's long-term Farming Systems Trial, studying how organic and reduced-till field crop production affects long-term farm economics, soil health and water quality compared to conventional practices.

She earned a Ph.D. in entomology at Pennsylvania State University and a B.S. in environmental toxicology at UC Davis.

Pearsons is based in San Luis Obispo and can be reached at kapearsons@ucanr.edu, (805) 788-9486 (office) and (925) 487-8374 (cell). She will be posting event information and resources for small-scale farms in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties on Instagram @ucceslosmallfarms. 

Satomi moves to UCCE Sutter-Yuba 

Ricky Satomi joined UCCE Sutter-Yuba on March 15 as an area forestry and natural resources advisor in the Western Sierra Region (Sutter, Yuba, Butte, Nevada and Placer counties). He specializes in forest management with a focus on new technologies and wood products.

Prior to moving to UCCE Sutter-Yuba, Satomi served as a UCCE area forest advisor working on forestry and youth education issues for Shasta, Trinity and Siskiyou counties. 

Satomi earned a Master of Forestry looking at the cost efficiency of forest mastication treatments, and a B.S. in forestry & natural resources and society & environment, both from UC Berkeley. He has also worked as a field forester working on various inventory and timber management programs throughout California.

In the coming year, he hopes to offer workshops for forest landowners and professionals around novel GIS tools, climate-smart silvicultural practices, reforestation best practices, and workforce development opportunities.

Satomi is based in Yuba City and can be reached at (530) 822-6213 or rpsatomi@ucanr.edu.

Barreto joins Contracts and Grants 

Cameron Barreto joined UC ANR as a senior contracts and grants officer on April 14. He will be working with the Office of Contracts and Grants to assist UC ANR researchers with the submission and management of their proposals and awards for sponsored research.

Prior to joining UC ANR, he was a research services coordinator with UC San Francisco Office of Sponsored Research for three years assisting the Pediatrics Department and participating in several extramural groups including serving as co-chair of the Office of Sponsored Research Council and Gallup Engagement Survey officer.

He earned a B.A. in history from the University of Rochester in upstate New York. 

Barreto is based at the ANR Building in Davis and can be reached at (530) 750-1368 and cebarreto@ucanr.edu.

Won joins UC Master Gardener Program 

Danny Won is the new program assistant for the UC Master Gardener Program statewide office. He has been with UC ANR since 2015, working as an administrative assistant for the UC Integrated Pest Management Program.

Won will be supporting the UC Master Gardener Program by managing inventory and shipping and overseeing volunteers' annual reappointment, California Department of Food and Agriculture licenses, program purchases, and many other projects. He will continue to provide support to UC IPM for events and workshops. His new office is located in the ANR building at space #102 and he can be reached at dwon@ucanr.edu.

Worker wins Scholar Award 

Steven Worker, UC Cooperative Extension advisor for 4-H youth development in Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties, received the 2022 Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association's Out-of-School Time Special Interest Group.

The Scholar Award recognizes outstanding research in the out-of-school time field and honors a scholar in the early to middle stages of their career.

Worker, who became a 4-H advisor in 2016, was recognized for excellence, creativity and intentionality in contributing to the out-of-school-time learning field. His research efforts have focused on (1) youth development with an emphasis on adapting, piloting and evaluating youth development program models that integrate culturally relevant practices to engage culturally diverse youth; (2) science learning that engages youth in personally meaningful experiences situated in authentic community activities; and (3) exploring factors involved with improving volunteer educator competence and confidence to facilitate high-quality youth development.

Worker strives to improve the cultural relevancy of youth development programs to make them more welcoming to marginalized youth. Applying his research findings, Worker organizes activities to engage youth in STEM. During the pandemic, he created ways for children to learn and socialize safely by meeting online to build motorboats and view livestock presentations in person at a drive-through animal science day. In May, he will host the North Bay Science Discovery Day.

Bruno wins New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award 

Ellen Bruno, UC Cooperative Extension economics specialist at UC Berkeley, is a recipient of the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) 2021 New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award, an award granted to early career scientists supporting research in one of FFAR's Challenge Areas.

FFAR's New Innovator in Food & Agriculture Research Award provides early-career scientists with funding to focus on food and agriculture research without the pressure of securing additional funding. Each applicant can receive up to $150,000 per year for a maximum of three years.

Meeting future food needs requires effectively managing scarce groundwater. California is addressing this problem through the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which ensures better groundwater use and management. Bruno's research is using the act as a case study to identify policies that enhance water sustainability and minimize regulation costs.

Kocher, Ingram win educational materials awards 

Susie Kocher, UC Cooperative Extension forestry and natural resources advisor, and Kim Ingram, forest stewardship education coordinator, won two bronze awards from the Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals for outstanding educational materials.

One award was for the Forest Stewardship Education Newsletter in the “Newsletters or Series of Articles” category and another award in the “TV or Video” category for their four-part series of Forest Inventory videos. Ingram and Kocher share the video award with Kestrel Grevatt, a GrizzlyCorps Fellow. 

Susie Kocher explains in a video how forest landowners can manage their forest land and take an inventory of trees in their forest.

 

Names in the News

Ingram named forest stewardship education academic coordinator

Kim Ingram is now an academic coordinator for forest stewardship education as of Nov. 18, 2019. She is also a trainer for UC ANR's Collaborative Facilitation Skills workshop and is involved with diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.

Prior to working with UCCE advisor Susie Kocher in forest stewardship education, Ingram had been an academic human resources business partner in UC ANR's Human Resources, leading academic recruitments, analyzing data and managing the academic merit and promotion process since 2015. From 2008 to 2015, Ingram was a community education specialist for the UC Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project and Sierra Nevada Watershed Ecosystem Enhancement Project. She planned, managed and implemented collaborations between UC, agencies, local communities and stakeholders, developed training curriculum and facilitated meetings, workshops and events related to forestry and fire issues in the Sierra Nevada. She was also an instructor of record for the California Naturalist Program and published a “Natural History of the Sierra Nevada” for use in California Naturalist Program trainings.

Ingram earned a master's degree in education, adult education and training from Colorado State University. She also holds a bachelor's degree in political science with a minor in environmental ethics from Humboldt State University.

Ingram is based in Davis and can be reached at kcingram@ucanr.edu.

Tomich elected AAAS fellow

Thomas Tomich has been named as a fellow of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society.

Tomich, director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis and UC ANR's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP), is among 443 new AAAS fellows elected this year.

Tomich is being recognized for "extraordinary contributions to generating sustainable solutions to global food system security through environmental science, effective policy, and collaborative research partnerships with underdeveloped economies globally."

His research spans agriculture and farming systems, economic development, food policy, and natural resource management. His publications include Transforming Agrarian Economies: Opportunities Seized, Opportunities Missed (1995); Environmental Services and Land Use Change: Bridging the Gap between Policy and Research in Southeast Asia (2004); Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: A Manual for Assessment Practitioners (2010); The California Nitrogen Assessment: Challenges and Solutions for People, Agriculture, and the Environment (2016), and Agricultural Research for Rural Prosperity: Rethinking the Pathways, a special issue of the journal Agricultural Systems (2019).

The new fellows will be formally recognized on Feb. 15, 2020, at the AAAS annual meeting in Seattle.  

ESA honors Dara for extension work

Surendra Dara, UC Cooperative Extension entomology and biologicals advisor for San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties, has received the 2019 Distinguished Achievement Award for Extension from the Entomological Society of America.

Dara addresses pest and disease issues of small fruits and vegetables with conventional and biological options, and finds alternative uses for entomopathogenic fungi as biofungicides and biostimulants. His research and extension program develops innovative solutions for sustainable crop production and protection, and he reaches out to the agricultural community locally, regionally and internationally.

As a volunteer, Dara has provided training in integrated pest management and crop production to farmers in Bangladesh, Haiti, Kosovo, Moldova, Mozambique, and Myanmar, and to visitors from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and Colombia.

Dara earned a Ph.D. in entomology from Virginia Tech and a postgraduate diploma in applied information technology from Information Technology Institute, Canada. He has nearly 25 years of experience in IPM and microbial control, working on 17 species of invasive pests and diseases and several endemic species throughout his career. He has authored or co-authored 350 scientific and extension articles, which include three co-edited books, one co-edited special issue of a journal, 13 book chapters and 50 peer-reviewed journal articles.

He serves on various committees at the University of California, the Society for Invertebrate Pathology, the Entomological Society of America, and the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists. He also publishes two e-journals and is a subject editor for the Journal of Economic Entomology. Dara was recently featured as a Western Innovator by Capital Press for his work in biologicals.

ESA presented him with the award at Entomology 2019 Nov. 19 in St. Louis, Mo.

 

 

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