Names in the News

Carvalho named UCCE feedlot management specialist

Pedro Carvalho joined UC ANR as a UC Cooperative Extension feedlot management specialist in the UC Davis Department of Animal Science, located in Imperial County, on Aug. 1, 2020. 

Carvalho grew up on his family's cattle and crop farm in the state of Goias in Brazil. In 2012, while an undergraduate, he came to the United States to work as an intern in the beef cattle reproduction and nutrition labs at The Ohio State University. After earning a bachelor's degree in animal science at Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil, he completed a master's degree at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

He recently earned his Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University, where he conducted research projects to enhance the efficiency of Holstein steers in the feedlot. 

“My plan as an extensionist and researcher at the Desert Research and Extension Center is to first understand what the needs are from our feedlot operations in Imperial County,” Carvalho told Stacey Amparano, Farm Smart manager, who wrote a Q&A with him. “After that, I plan to implement and conduct actions (research projects and on-farm training) to help our beef producers and farmworkers. I really hope that I can bring value to our stakeholders by providing information on nutrition and management, as well as helping to train and improve the lives of the workers in feed yards of our state.”

Read the full text of Carvalho's Q&A with Stacey Amparano at https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=43442.

Carvalho is based at UC Desert Research and Extension Center and can be reached at pcarvalho@ucdavis.edu and (217) 418-0202. 

Sorooshian honored by American Meteorological Society

Soroosh Sorooshian, distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Irvine and Director of the Center for Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing, will receive an award from the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

AMS named Sorooshian, who is the director of UC ANR's International Rosenberg Forum on Water Policy, the recipient of its 2021 Hydrological Sciences Medal “For ingenious, groundbreaking work on surface hydrology and the remote sensing of precipitation that has profoundly impacted the field of hydrometeorology.”

The award will be presented during the AMS annual meeting scheduled to be in New Orleans Jan. 10-14, 2021.

Sacramento Valley Orchards newsletter wins award

A group of UCCE farm advisors won an award for the educational contributions of their Sacramento Valley Orchard newsletter. The Extension Division of the American Society of Horticultural Science presented an Education Materials award in the Newsletter Category for the “2019 Quarterly Publication of Almond, Walnut and Prune Sacramento Valley Newsletters.”

Coauthors of the newsletters are UCCE advisors Franz Niederholzer, Katherine Jarvis-Shean, Luke Milliron, Allan Fulton, Janine Hasey, Joe Connell, Rick Buchner, Dani Lightle and Emily Symmes, and UC Davis graduate student Drew Wolter.

Amid increasing orchard acreage, and reduced University of California Cooperative Extension orchard advisor appointments, advisors in the eight counties of the Sacramento Valley formed collaborative newsletters to increase their impact.

Quarterly newsletters for almonds, walnuts, and prunes provide a compelling model to better serve the approximately 1 million acres of tree nuts and fruit crops in the valley.

The team has created a sustained connection with more than 5,000 newsletter recipients and together published over 50 articles in 2019 alone. These articles made an even greater impact through publication on their own SacValleyOrchards.com website and frequent reprints by agricultural news media. 

NOW team wins ESA IPM Team Award

The Navel Orangeworm Mating Disruption Adoption Team will receive the 2020 IPM Team Award from the Plant-Insect Ecology Section of the Entomology Society of America. 

The Navel Orangeworm Mating Disruption Adoption Team is composed of

• David Haviland, UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program 
• Bradley Higbee, Trécé, Inc. 
• Charles Burks, USDS-ARS Commodity Protection and Quality Research Unit, Parlier  
• Jhalendra Rijal, UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program 
• Emily Symmes, Suterra, LLC. 
• Robert Curtis, former associate director of agricultural affairs for the Almond Board of California 
• Stephanie Rill, UC Cooperative Extension, Kern County

Normally the award is given in person at the ESA Annual Meeting in November, but there will be a virtual ceremony this year. 

Diaz honored by state Sen. Morrell

Claudia Diaz, 4-H youth development advisor for Riverside and San Bernardino counties, recently received a prestigious award from state Senator Mike Morrell recognizing her work engaging underserved urban youth in environmental stewardship.  

“She has also been instrumental in helping the Urban Conservation Corps develop greater capacity to engage youth of color in environmental education and stewardship, especially as it relates to resource development,” said Sandy Bonilla, founder of Urban Conservation Corps of the Inland Empire. “Her work engaging diverse children (Latinos, African-Americans, Native Americans) into the environmental movement is to be applauded.” 

Aguiar honored by Riverside County Supervisors

Jose Aguiar, who retired in July as a UCCE vegetable crops small farm advisor in Riverside County, was honored recently by the Riverside County Board of Supervisors for his 28 years of service to the community.

In a ceremony held online due to COVID-19 constraints, Supervisor Manuel Perez presented Aguiar with a proclamation on behalf of the Riverside County Board of Supervisors, saying, “It is signed by all the supervisors and it is in gratitude for all you have done, Jose. We appreciate you, Jose. We appreciate what you have done for the agricultural industry.”

See an excerpt of Perez's remarks at https://youtu.be/SyafbarGJNU.

 

 

                                 

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