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Posts Tagged: Helen Dahlke
Names in the News
Natalie Price joined UC ANR on April 3, 2017, as the nutrition, family and consumer sciences advisor for Los Angeles and Orange counties. She will work with local organizations and school districts to provide culturally sensitive nutrition education and programs. In addition, Price will collaborate with the larger ANR team of nutrition researchers to address issues related to health and food security.
Before joining ANR, Price worked as a nutrition specialist for the Los Angeles County Office of Education. She worked with school districts to implement fruit and vegetable taste tests, train staff, and create new wellness policies and committees.
Price earned a master's degree in public health/community health sciences and a bachelor's degree in international development studies, both from UCLA.
Price is based at the UCCE Los Angeles County office in Alhambra and can be reached at (626) 586-1948 and nmprice@ucanr.edu.
The California Society for Range Management honored Stephanie Larson, UC Cooperative Extension director and livestock and range management advisor in Sonoma County, naming her Range Manager of the Year at the Cal-Pac Society for Range Management meeting April 4, 2017.
The award recognizes her years of research and extension work, conducting a diverse program that focuses on animal husbandry, rangeland ecosystem services and development of niche markets for local livestock producers. Larson helped local rangeland owners develop water quality plans and comply with Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) regulations. She initiated a “Notice of Intent” system for Tomales Bay watershed land owners that documents water quality and best management practices. This system has been adopted by the Regional Water Quality Control Board and was later extended to Napa and Sonoma Creek watersheds.
With nearly 1 million acres of rangeland in Sonoma and Marin counties, Larson works with rangeland owners and managers to develop strong stewardship principals and best management practices. Larson assesses ecosystem service management and is currently exploring payments for services, such as carbon sequestration, water capture and biodiversity. During her career she has conducted hundreds of local education meetings on livestock production, animal identification, biosecurity, wool marketing, livestock judging, predator control including non-lethal methods, parasite control, range weed management, riparian management, water quality, electric fencing, ranch and grazing planning, estate planning, soil health, vegetation monitoring, grass-fed and organic certification, and grazing for endangered species. Larson also teaches range management at Santa Rosa Junior College. She served as a board member, then president of the Cal-Pac Section and as a board member for the national society 2010–2013.
David Lewis, UC Cooperative Extension watershed advisor for Marin County, is this year's recipient of the Eric Bradford and Charlie Rominger Agricultural Sustainability Leadership Award.
For 17 years, Lewis has served as a UC Cooperative Extension advisor, helping farmers, ranchers, conservationists and other stakeholders solve challenging and contentious issues surrounding the health of their watersheds.
The Bradford Rominger award, given by the Agricultural Sustainability Institute (ASI) at UC Davis, honors individuals who exhibit the leadership, work ethic and integrity epitomized by the late Eric Bradford, a livestock geneticist who gave 50 years of service to UC Davis, and the late Charlie Rominger, a fifth-generation Yolo County farmer and land preservationist.
“David epitomizes the very fiber of character that this award celebrates,” said Kenneth Tate, Russell L. Rustici Endowed Chair in Rangeland Watershed Science at UC Davis and 2012 Bradford Rominger award recipient. Tate praised Lewis's ability to “put his quiet, honest, credible manner to good work” to help build trust and understanding so communities can have frank discussions about the challenges facing their watersheds.
Lewis's accomplishments include helping to reduce the dairy pollution hurting the oyster beds of Tomales Bay and helping ranchers reduce erosion on their property, letting them play a key role in conserving critical coho salmon habitat and protecting the water quality of North Coast rivers.
Lewis received the award at the “Shepherds of Sustainability: Celebrating Leadership in Watersheds, Rangeland, and Livestock Sustainability” event held in Davis on April 19, 2017.
Helen Dahlke, UC Davis professor in the Department of Land, Air and Water, is one of 10 leaders in water education, outreach and extension selected to be a ThinkWater fellow for 2017–2018. The ThinkWater fellowship builds a cohort of scholars and professionals engaged with water-related issues and teaches them how to apply systems thinking to their ongoing work. The fellows work in positions that allow them to integrate systems thinking into program design, education and outreach involving a broad range of audiences, such as farmers, community members, volunteers and youth.
Fellows will learn from Derek and Laura Cabrera, faculty at Cornell University and founders of Cabrera Research Lab, a proven method for teaching the universal rules underlying systems thinking approaches and methods that is suitable for all ages and populations. While learning and applying systems thinking, the fellows will be participating in a research study to determine the utility of the relatively brief but intensive systems thinking training for education, extension and outreach activities around complex water-related issues.
The fellows will develop and implement a comprehensive plan to integrate systems thinking into their water education, extension and outreach work in the geographic area they serve.
Adina Merenlender, UCCE specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley, was elected President-elect for the Society for Conservation Biology.
Merenlender hopes to focus on increasing SCB's engagement with people who do conservation practice on the ground and to work with SCB's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee to engage more people who are not currently represented in environmental science in SCB. She also hopes to work with SCB's new executive director on financial sustainability at the global, section and chapter level.
The Society for Conservation Biology is an international professional organization dedicated to promoting the scientific study of the phenomena that affect the maintenance, loss and restoration of biological diversity. The society's membership comprises a wide range of people interested in the conservation and study of biological diversity: resource managers, educators, government and private conservation workers and students.
UC ANR goes to Washington
“We visited offices of 26 of California's 55-member congressional delegation in two days!” said Lucas Frerichs, government and community relations manager.
On March 6-9, a UC ANR delegation attended the 35th Annual Council on Agriculture Research, Extension and Teaching (CARET) meetings in Washington D.C. CARET is part of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU). They also made congressional visits to explain the importance of science and research to California.
Vice President Glenda Humiston was joined by AVP Wendy Powers, UCB College of Natural Resources Dean Keith Gilless, UCR College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences Dean Kathryn Uhrich, Nutrition Policy Institute Director Lorrene Ritchie, UC Cooperative Extension Specialist Clare Gupta, Chief Innovation Officer Gabe Youtsey, and Frerichs. Industry partners Bill Frost, former UC ANR AVP; Cher Watte, executive director of the California Asparagus Commission; Mike Mellano, fresh cut flower grower; Dina Moore, Humboldt County rancher; and Jean-Mari Peltier, managing partner of Environmental Solutions Group, served as CARET delegates from California.
The group split up into teams to visit the offices of Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, agriculture committee members, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and other California representatives.
Although no U.S. secretary of agriculture had been confirmed at the time of their visit, members expressed their support for agriculture.
“One thing that members of Congress – Republicans and Democrats – can certainly agree on is that the support for agriculture and the University of California is strong,” Frerichs said.
Read more about the CARET visits in Powers' ANR Adventures blog.
Names in the News
Mark Bell will join UC ANR on May 1 as Vice Provost–Statewide Programs/Strategic Initiatives position. Bell is director of the UC Davis International Learning Center, a position he has held since 2007.
In this newly created position, Bell will provide leadership for a unified UC ANR program with strong statewide, campus and local presences. He will oversee the California Institute for Water Resources, Nutrition Policy Institute, the five UC ANR Strategic Initiatives and the nine UC ANR Statewide Programs. In addition, he will coordinate the Division's participation in the UC Presidential Initiatives, including the Global Food, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, UC-Mexico and Carbon Neutrality initiatives.
“Mark's record of success working with international extension systems in the combined roles of manager and field researcher makes him the ideal choice to serve as Vice Provost–Statewide Programs/Strategic Initiatives,” said VP Humiston in announcing his hiring.
“UC ANR can benefit from his skills and experience in leveraging research-extension linkages, adult education and information technology for agricultural development,” she said. Prior to joining UC Davis, Bell, who speaks Spanish, worked for nine years at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico and 11 years at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines.
At IRRI, he led development of the Rice Knowledge Bank – the world's major repository for rice-oriented training and extension materials aimed to help developing countries. He is currently leading development of Ag Extension, eAfghan Ag and e-China Apple at UC Davis International Learning Center.
As vice provost, he will serve on the UC ANR Program Council and collaborate closely with the Vice Provost of Cooperative Extension and the Director of the Research and Extension Center System. He will be located in the offices at 2801 Second Street in Davis.
Bell has a Ph.D. in soil science and bachelor's degree in agricultural sciences from the University of Queensland in Australia and a master's degree in soil science from the University of Reading, U.K.
Cassandra Swett joined UCCE on Jan. 2, 2017, as an assistant specialist in Cooperative Extension in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis.
Prior to joining UCCE, Swett was an assistant professor and extension specialist at the University of Maryland, College Park, studying small fruit and grape diseases. Previously, Swett worked as a postdoctoral researcher with Doug Gubler, UCCE specialist in the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis.
Swett earned her B.S. in plant science from UC Santa Cruz, an M.S. in tropical plant pathology from the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and a Ph.D. in plant pathology from the Department of Plant Pathology at UC Davis.
Swett is located at 260 Hutchison Hall and can be reached at (530) 752-3377 and clswett@ucdavis.edu.
Stephanie Parreira joined UC IPM as a writer/editor on Feb. 13. Parreira will develop new and evaluate existing publications and products such as the "Pest Management Guidelines," year-round IPM programs, online tutorials, videos, identification cards, and other training materials. She will also assist UC IPM's urban and community IPM team with training courses about the principles of integrated pest management for UC Master Gardeners and other extenders of pest management information.
As a graduate student, Parreira sought to fill five major research gaps in honey bee pesticide toxicology: effects on whole colonies, effects on nurse bees (the youngest adult bees in a honey bee colony, which do not leave to collect pollen and nectar), effects of long-term exposure to field-realistic concentrations of pesticides, pesticide interactions, and effects of exposure through multiple routes (such as nectar and pollen). Outside of her research, she took many opportunities to speak to the public about current problems in bee health and what people can do to help bees thrive. She became especially interested in working in extension because of these experiences.
Parreira earned a B.A. in environmental studies and planning with a minor in biology from Sonoma State University in 2013, and earned an M.S. in horticulture with a focus in entomology from Oregon State University in 2016.
Parreira is located at the ANR building in Davis and can be reached at (530) 750-1391 and sparreira@ucanr.edu.
Michael Purnell joined the Statewide IPM Program on Feb. 2 as a programmer. He will be working on developing tools for the web that will enhance and add to the existing UC IPM products. Some of these tools include improving and upgrading the plant problem diagnostics tool, IPM decision support tool, bee precaution pesticide ratings, and herbicide symptoms photo repository.
Before joining UC IPM, Purnell was a project manager and technical lead for Intel Corporation in Folsom, CA where he and his team developed code and designed technical diagrams to integrate Intel's administrative systems with third party on-premise and cloud solutions.
Purnell earned his B.S. and M.S. in computer science at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University.
Purnell is based at the ANR building in Davis, with the IPM IT/Production team, and can be reached at (530) 750-1248 and mdpurnell@ucanr.edu.
UC ANR invites legislators to Ag Day at the Capitol
Ag Day at the Capitol was held in Sacramento on March 22. On Monday, March 20, Lucas Frerichs, Tyler Ash, Pam Kan-Rice and Meredith Turner of UC State Government Relations, visited the offices of all 120 legislators and the governor and lieutenant governor to invite them to visit the UC ANR booth at Ag Day. They handed out bags of UC-developed "Tango" mandarins, explaining that the seedless, easy-to-peel citrus variety is one of many California crops developed with UC ANR research.
We'll have more coverage of Ag Day at the Capitol in the next ANR Report.
To see Twitter coverage of Ag Day at the Capitol, look for the hashtags #CalAgDay and #growCAtogether.
FAQ on possible federal immigration enforcement actions on UC property
UC Office of the President has created a website for frequently asked questions on immigration enforcement actions.
Charles F. Robinson, UC general counsel and vice president of Legal Affairs, has issued the FAQ for members of the University of California community who are concerned about immigration enforcement actions occurring across the country and have asked about the possibility of enforcement actions occurring at UC. This document, published online at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/content/frequently-asked-questions-federal-immigration-enforcement-actions, answers questions and provides information about how to respond in such a situation. Please keep in mind that Department of Homeland Security policies are in transition and this guidance will be updated as warranted.
A PDF version of the FAQ is available at https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/sites/default/files/frequently-asked-questions-federal-immigration-enforcement-uc.pdf
The FAQ on immigration is also the first link under “Resources” on UC's Immigration website https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/immigration.
