"I am pleased Joanna Chiu has been appointed as the chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology," said Helene Dillard, dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. "She is an outstanding scholar and teacher with demonstrated leadership skills. I look forward to watching Professor Chiu thrive in her new role as chair and seeing the department continue to flourish.”
The new vice chair is community ecologist and associate professor Rachel Vannette, and the new Entomology Graduate Program chair, replacing Chiu, is community ecologist and professor Louie Yang.
Other women scientists who have chaired the department: Professor Diane Ullman, 2004-05, and interim chair, Lynn Kimsey, 2008-09.
Chiu joined the Department of Entomology and Nematology in 2010 as an assistant professor, and advanced to associate professor and vice chair in 2016, and to professor and vice chair in 2021. She was named one of 10 UC Davis Chancellor's Fellows in 2019, a five-year honor awarded to associate professors who excel in research and teaching. The UC Davis Academic Senate honored her with a Distinguished Teaching Award, Graduate/Professional category, in 2022. She most recently received the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research.
Chiu co-founded and co-directs (with professors Jay Rosenheim and Louie Yang) the campuswide Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology, launched in 2011 to provide undergraduates with a closely mentored research experience in biology. The program's goal is to provide academically strong and highly motivated undergraduates with a multi-year research experience that cultivates skills that will prepare them for a career in biological research.
A native of Hong Kong and a first-generation college student, Joanna received her bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in biology and music from Mount Holyoke College, Mass., and her doctorate in molecular genetics in 2004 from New York University, New York. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow from 2004 to 2010 in molecular chronobiology at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her postdoctoral training was funded by an NIH F32 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award postdoctoral fellowship and K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.
"I grew up not knowing any scientists,” she related. “Both my parents work in the financial industry and neither went to college. However, my dad loves the outdoors and my childhood memories includes snorkeling with my dad and siblings, hiking in the very limited outdoors in my native Hong Kong, and watching a lot of National Geographic on TV. As a result, I have always been curious about biology, especially animal behavior. I really hoped to study biology in college. My parents, on the other hand, wanted me to be a doctor."
Vannette joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in 2015 after serving as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University's biology department. As a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow from 2011 to 2015, she examined the role of nectar chemistry in community assembly of yeasts and plant-pollinator interactions.
Yang, a native of Australia, but who grew up in West Virginia, received his bachelor's degree in biology from Cornell University, magna cum laude, in 1999, and a doctorate in population biology from UC Davis in 2006. He received the University of California President's Postdoctoral Fellowship to train with Professor Jonathan Levine (UCSB) and Professor Mary Power (UCB). He joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology as an assistant professor in 2008, advanced to associate professor in June 2015, and to professor in July 2021. Yang is highly regarded for his research and mentoring. He received the 2017 Eleanor and Harry Walker Academic Advising Award, the 2018 NACADA international Outstanding Faculty Academic Advising Award, and the 2023 Distinction in Student Mentoring Award from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America.
The Department of Entomology at UC Davis began as an offshoot of the Department of Entomology and Parasitology at UC Berkeley and the two were closely entwined for more than 50 years before the UC Davis Department of Entomology became autonomous on July 1, 1963. The department now has 24 faculty, plus a lecturer.
UC Davis offered a two-year non-degree program in entomology, beginning in 1913. The first degree in entomology provided at UC Davis was in 1923-24 at which time Stanley B. Freeborn (for whom Freeborn hall was named) was transferred from UC Berkeley to UC Davis to head the program. (See https://entomology.ucdavis.edu/entomology-history)
The UC Davis Department of Nematology officially joined the Department of Entomology on May 28, 2013.