Our Team
Faculty
Maurice Pitesky, DVM, MPVM, DIpl. ACVPM
Dr. Pitesky is an Assistant Specialist in Cooperative Extension in Population Health & Reproduction at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. His faculty appointment is in poultry health and food safety epidemiology. His primary research interests are in spatial and temporal epidemiology of avian diseases, food safety, and sustainability with respects to poultry production, with a special interest for alternative systems such as pastured raised flocks.
Please direct inquiries regarding the farm to Dr. Pitesky
Debbie Niemeier, PhD, PE
Dr. Niemeier is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Director of the UC Davis Sustainable Design Academy. Her research interests are in the areas of sustainable pasture poultry, energy consumption and land use interactions. For the Pastured Poultry Farm, Dr. Niemeier and her team have designed and constructed a customized "eggmobile" enhancing ease of access for sanitation and egg collection while improving ventilation and other environmental challenges.
Alda Pires, DVM, MPVM, PhD, Dipl. ACVPM
Dr. Pires is an Assistant Specialist in Cooperative Extension for Urban Agriculture and food safety in Population Health & Reproduction at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Her research focuses on epidemiological methods to identify strategies to reduce the dissemination of foodborne pathogens in pre-harvest small farm environments and the spread of infectious disease in the food supply.
Roger Baldwin, PhD
Dr. Baldwin is an Associate Cooperative Extension Specialist within the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. Dr. Baldwin’s focus is on human-wildlife conflict resolution and he conducts his research and extension program in agricultural, natural resource, and urban environments, with a special emphasis on mammalian species.
Pramod Pandey, PhD
Dr. Pandey is an Assistant Specialist in Cooperative Extension in microbiological waste at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. His research focuses on deriving engineering solutions (involving veterinarians, engineers, specialist, farm managers, and dairy farmers) for controlling microbial pathogens from animal waste.
Staff
Anny Huang, BS
Anny is a UC Davis Graduate in Animal Science. She is the manager of the pastured poultry farm and is responsible for training students and ensuring maintenance of the flock and pasture.
Ruby Chen, BS
Ruby is a UC Davis Graduate in Civil Engineering and Construction management. Ruby leads our engineering team and is in charge of the maintenance and repair of the coops. She is currently working on a project to create low-cost mobile chicken coops in Nepal to help women become successful poultry producers.
Sarai Acosta, BS
Sarai is a UC Davis Graduate in Global Disease Biology. She helps manage the farm and is part of our husbandry team, helping with daily husbandry tasks such as feeding and egg collecting.
Students
Veterinary:
Nicole Fernandez
Nicole is a first year veterinary student. She is interested in animal health and welfare, and developed a passion for poultry through work with the UC Davis Pastured Poultry Farm. Nicole is part of our husbandry team and is responsible for tours and our social media.
Undergraduate:
Macie Tanaka
Macie is a fourth year undergraduate student majoring in Animal Science. Macie is our student manager and is responsible for student scheduling and ensuring IACUC protocols and standards are met.
Annie Yeh (4th year, Animal Science)
Jeselle-Ann Laxa (2nd year)
Josephine Yao (4th year, Animal Science)
Katherine Ramirez (3rd year, Animal Science)
Katrina Gong (4th year, Animal Science)
Kirthi Hagalwadi (4th year, Animal Science)
Lauren Walther (4th year, Animal Science)
Nina Quach (3rd year, Animal Science)
Odette Clamp (4th year, Global Disease Biology)