Posts Tagged: Mallika Nocco

Water Wizards will reach out to Bay Area kids

UC Davis and UC ANR receive $10 million for water research and education; Bay Area children will be invited to learn about water's importance to life

A new University of California Cooperative Extension program will teach Bay Area schoolchildren about water through hands-on activities. Funded by a $565,000 USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant, the education program is part of a larger research project led by UC Davis Professor Isaya Kisekka, in partnership with multiple institutions and ecologists, to sustain irrigated agriculture while improving groundwater quantity and quality in the Southwest under a changing climate.

4-H Water Wizards, a UCCE-led, inquiry-based, water education project, will include opportunities for students of color to meet with diverse scientists and imagine career possibilities in science, technology, education and math (STEM).

“As a grandparent myself, I'm proud to support the University of California Cooperative Extension's Water Wizards program,” said Nate Miley, Alameda County Board of Supervisors vice president. “This exciting, hands-on learning experience teaches students the importance of water conservation while encouraging good stewardship of our environment.”

With 4-H Water Wizards, students will explore water scarcity, water quality and how they can be a catalyst for change. Students will also take a field trip to UC Agriculture and Natural Resources' Elkus Ranch Environmental Education Center in Half Moon Bay for hands-on learning. 

“I am incredibly ‘pumped' for the 4-H Water Wizards program to inspire Bay Area BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] youth to pursue STEM through connections with water, food and the environment as well as receive mentorship from UC Cooperative Extension scientists,” said Mallika Arudi Nocco, an assistant professor of Cooperative Extension in soil-plant-water relations at UC Davis.

“We want to create an opportunity for urban kids in the Bay Area to experience different surroundings and literally get their feet wet,” said Frank McPherson, director of UC Cooperative Extension in the Bay Area counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo and San Francisco. “We expect our hands-on, research-based, experiential learning approach to STEM will stimulate the interest of students who are Black, Indigenous and people of color.”   

He envisions students from Hayward and Oakland dipping jars into a gurgling stream that flows through the rolling green hills and canyons of the 125-acre Elkus Ranch so educators can show them some of the organisms that live in the water as part of the natural ecosystem.

“We will collaborate with school districts, teachers and staff on an 11-week program designed to spark environmental learning, increase STEM knowledge and broaden students' understanding of water, sustainable agriculture and conservation,” said McPherson. 

Initially UC Cooperative Extension will be reaching out to Bay Area students with a focus on 7th through 10th graders in Alameda County schools with high populations of Black, Latino and other students of color.

“Hayward Unified is excited to partner with UC ANR on the Water Wizards Youth Program to provide students with hands-on learning experiences that encourage inquiry, a provide chance to visit a local Water Education Center, and build environmental literacy for students to take action on water issues in the community,” said Nancy Wright, an elementary science teacher with the Alameda County Office of Education.

The program is designed to provide experiential learning to BIPOC students and encourage them to build upon their own knowledge and skills, McPherson said. “We teach them that water is a valuable and limited resource so that they can make informed decisions,” he explained. “The program also includes a service-learning project that combines learning objectives with community service.” 

To adapt 4-H Water Wizards for the Bay Area, McPherson said they are working with Marianne Bird, the UC 4-H youth development advisor who developed after school 4-H Water Wizards programs for Sacramento-area children.

Under Bird's supervision, Capitol Corridor Water Wizards engages about 400 youth each year, predominately at schools in lower-income neighborhoods, where at least 50% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. The Water Wizard participants learn about water cycles, watersheds, salinity, water density and water issues and begin to understand how people, plants and animals depend on water.

McPherson said the NIFA grant will support delivery of the pilot water education program with Alameda County schools. He is currently working to secure funding from other sources to expand Water Wizards to more schools in the Bay Area. 

Drought is back! And so is Water Talk

 

The Water Talk podcast returns Friday, April 2, for its second season. This year's podcast will include a focus on the water issue on many minds at the end of a relatively dry rainy season: drought. As Water Talk co-host Faith Kearns says in the Season 2 preview episode, “in California, drought is not ‘if', it's ‘when'.” 

 

The second season will include a diverse group of guests from every corner of the state; border to border. “We thought a lot about the geography of the state, the identities of the people with whom we were speaking, and the experts we were talking with, and the topics,” says co-host Mallika Nocco.

 

The weekly podcast will feature discussions of agriculture, water policy, environmental and social justice, land and wildlife management, water for cities, Indigenous perspectives on water, climate change, and other issues related to California water. 

 

 

Some aspects of the podcast were modified in the second season as well. For example, instead of recording the podcast during a simultaneous live event, each episode was recorded with only the co-hosts. In addition, two production assistants supported the development of each episode. 

 

“The Water Talk team has new members!” the group tweeted. “We were thrilled to welcome ultra-talented Claire Bjork and Victoria Roberts as production support for Season 2, thanks in part to a UC ANR Renewable Resources Extension Act grant.”  

 

You can subscribe, listen and download all the episodes in Spotify, Apple and Google podcasts, as well as on the podcast's webpage. In addition to listening to the podcast, you can follow @podcast_water on Twitter for water-related news.

 

To catch up on Season 1 of Water Talk, visit watertalkpodcast.com.

 

The Water Talk podcast is hosted by Mallika Nocco, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the UC Davis Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources; Faith Kearns, California Institute for Water Resources academic coordinator; and Samuel Sandoval Solis, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in UC Davis Department of Land, Air, and Water Resources.

New advisors, specialists and a director join UC Agriculture and Natural Resources

Expanding its expertise in water, soil, pest management, forestry and small farms, five new academics and a county director have joined the ranks of UC Cooperative Extension.

Kim Ingram
Forest stewardship education academic coordinator
UC Cooperative Extension Central Sierra - Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and El Dorado counties

In November 2019, Kim Ingram was named the academic coordinator for forest stewardship education in UC Cooperative Extension's Central Sierra office, which includes Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne and El Dorado counties.

Previously, Ingram was 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. Ingram also served as a community education specialist for the UC Sierra Nevada Adaptive Management Project and Sierra Nevada Watershed Ecosystem Enhancement Project. In that role, 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 is an instructor of record for the UC 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 can be reached at kcingram@ucanr.edu.

Safeeq Khan
UC Cooperative Extension water and watershed sciences specialist
Based at UC Merced

Safeeq Khan joined UC ANR in October 2019 as a UC Cooperative Extension assistant water and watershed sciences specialist. His research focuses on understanding the interaction between climate and ecosystems to inform land and water management. He uses data-driven numerical models as a research tool to aid in the understanding of watershed systems. As a CE specialist, Khan will develop and carry out collaborative, multifaceted research and extension related to mountain hydrology and their linkage with downstream water uses statewide, with special attention to the Sierra Nevada-Central Valley watersheds.

Prior to joining UC ANR, Khan was a professional researcher and adjunct professor in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Merced for five years. Khan brings more than 10 years of research, education and extension experience. He has published more than 35 peer-reviewed journal papers and book chapters, successfully secured several externally funded projects, and presented his work to a diverse range of audiences through digital and print media, workshops and conferences.

Khan has worked very closely with state and federal agencies, local landowners and nonprofit organizations, both in California and elsewhere. He has led several projects related to watershed management, from investigating the impact of non-native tree species and groundwater overdraft on streamflow in Hawaii to mapping hydrological vulnerabilities to climate change in the Pacific Northwest. More recently, his research has been focused on evaluating climate change and watershed restoration impacts on water and forest health and developing stakeholder-driven adaptive decision support tools. He serves as an associate editor for the journal Hydrological Processes. Khan is also a co-director of UC Merced's first Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) grant that addresses connected wildland-storage-cropland subsystems in California.

Khan earned a Ph.D. in natural resources and environmental management from University of Hawaii at Manoa. He also holds a master's degree in agricultural systems and management from Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur, India, and a bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering from CSA University of Agriculture and Technology Kanpur, India. In addition to English, he is fluent in Hindi and Urdu. 

Khan is based at UC Merced and can be reached at (209) 386-3623 and msafeeq@ucanr.edu. Follow him on Twitter @safeeqkhan.

Cindy Kron
Area integrated pest management advisor
UC Cooperative Extension in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties

Cindy Kron joined UC Cooperative Extension as area-wide IPM advisor for Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino and Lake counties in September 2019.

Before joining UCCE, Kron studied the three-cornered alfalfa hopper as a research entomologist for USDA in their Crop Disease, Pests and Genetics research unit. She tested cover crop species as feeding and reproductive hosts of the three-cornered alfalfa hopper in addition to testing commercially available biocontrol agents against the different life stages of the treehopper. She collaborated with a UC Davis colleague to create a degree day model that predicts the ideal timing to implement cultural control measures with the greatest impact on treehopper populations. 

Kron has conducted research on a variety of insects including a two-year vineyard study on the population dynamics of Virginia creeper leafhopper, western grape leafhopper and variegated leafhopper. For her dissertation, she investigated the biology and behavior of the three-cornered alfalfa hopper and their relationship with vineyards. She also studied the effects of temperature on the developmental rate of the invasive European grapevine moth and reared brown marmorated stink bugs for USDA fumigation studies.

“My experiences have motivated me to help growers, stakeholders and the industry solve agricultural pest management problems through applied research by identifying IPM strategies and tactics that are economically feasible and implementable while having the lowest environmental impact,” Kron said.

Kron earned her bachelor's degree in viticulture and enology, with a minor in agricultural pest management, and her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis.

She is based in Santa Rosa and can be reached at ckron@ucanr.edu.

Mallika Nocco
UC Cooperative Extension specialist in soil-plant-water relations
Based at UC Davis

Mallika Nocco joined UC ANR in September 2019 as a UC Cooperative Extension specialist in soil-plant-water relations, based at UC Davis. She earned her bachelor's degree in cultural studies/comparative literature and philosophy from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. After five years in the corporate world, Nocco decided to pursue her interest in soil, plants, and the conundrum of sustainable agriculture. She completed a master's degree in soil science and a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Nelson Institute's Environment and Resources Program.

Nocco is based at UC Davis and can be reached at manocco@ucdavis.edu. Follow her on Twitter @mallika_nocco.

Karmjot Randhawa
Director of UC Cooperative Extension in Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties

Karmjot Randhawa joined UC ANR in September 2019 as the UC Cooperative Extension director for Fresno, Madera, Kings and Tulare counties. 

In this newly created position, Randhawa is responsible for the coordination and overall operations of Cooperative Extension programs these Central Valley counties. Unlike traditional county director positions, Randhawa doesn't have academic research responsibilities, so she can focus on overseeing the educational and applied research programs and providing direction and leadership to the academic and support staff within the county extension programs. 

Prior to joining ANR, the Central Valley native was the research translation operations manager at George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication. 

“I look forward to increasing the visibility of UCCE by communicating the positive impacts realized by the people who live in the San Joaquin Valley and benefit from the research activities and contributions of these units,” Randhawa said.

Randhawa received her bachelor's and master's degrees in research psychology at California State University, Fresno, and received her MBA from Johns Hopkins University. She is currently completing the Climate Change and Health Certification Program at Yale University. 

Randhawa is based in Fresno and can be reached at (559) 241-7514 and kgrandhawa@ucanr.edu. 

Qi Zhou
UC Cooperative Extension assistant specialist for small farms in Santa Clara County

Qi Zhou joined UC ANR in September 2019 as a UCCE assistant specialist for small farms in Santa Clara County. She will work closely with project directors at UCCE Santa Clara to lead research and extension work related to food safety practices on small farms, beginning farmer education and Asian vegetable production. 

Prior to joining UC ANR, Zhou conducted research on peach fruit production at Clemson University. At Huazhong Agricultural University, Zhou designed and conducted an experiment that identified the differences between flood-tolerant and flood-susceptible poplar seedlings. Zhou has published several scientific manuscripts and abstracts and given extension presentations.

Zhou earned a Ph.D. in plant and environmental sciences with a minor in statistics from Clemson University, South Carolina, a master's degree in horticulture and forestry from Huazhong Agricultural University, China, and a bachelor's degree in horticulture from Hunan Agricultural University, China. In addition to English, Zhou is fluent in Mandarin.

Zhou is based in San Jose and can be reached at (408) 282-3109 and qiizhou@ucanr.edu. 

 

Read more