UC Davis Entomology unit gets top national ranking

Entomology unit gets top national ranking
Article Launched: 12/02/2007 07:34:16 AM PST

The Department of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, is ranked No. 1 in the country, in rankings just released by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

"This was for our remarkable performances in faculty scholarly productivity, scientific citations per faculty, percentage of faculty with a journal publication, number of journal publications per faculty, and grantsmanship, among other factors," said Walter Leal, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology.

Last year the Chronicle ranked the UC Davis Department of Entomology as No. 8 in the country. "We're back at the top where we belong," Leal said.

The Chronicle of Higher Education is considered the top news and job-information source for college and university faculty members, administrators and students.

The 2007 index compiles overall institutional rankings on 375 universities that offer the Ph.D. degree. Faculty members can be judged on as many as five factors, depending on the most important variables in the given discipline: books published; journal publications; citations of journal articles; federal-grant dollars awarded; and honors and awards.

UC Davis scored 1.87 in the faculty scholarly productivity index, outdistancing the 1.44 index of the University of Wisconsin, the runner-up.

UC Davis scored a perfect 100 percent for percentage of faculty with a journal publication. Other top categories included journal publications per faculty, an average of 12.39; and percentage of faculty with a journal publication cited by another work, 94 percent. Citations of journal articles per faculty averaged 70.28.

The average amount of grant funding per faculty member for the past fiscal year totaled $412,251. Thirty-three percent of the faculty received a new grant. Eleven percent of the faculty received an award, according to the data collected.

The Entomology Department is the home of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, which houses more than seven million specimens. It is also involved with projects at the Jepson Prairie Reserve in Vacaville, the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, the UC Davis Superfund Basic Research and Training and the statewide UC Mosquito Research Program.

Grant data were collected from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and from three programs in the Department of Energy.

For awards and honors, data were collected from the Web sites of 357 organizations that grant awards and honors and they are matched to names and programs.

The department traces its beginnings back to 1907 when a UC Berkeley professor lectured on whiteflies at a farmers' short course in Davis. UC Davis launched its two-year entomology program in 1913, leading to degrees offered in 1923-24.

Areas of emphasis include biological control, economic entomology, pollination biology, insect chemical ecology, insect olfaction, insect demography, insect physiology, insect toxicology, integrated pest management, ecology and evolution, forensic entomology, medical entomology (human and animal health) and systematics.

Headquartered in Briggs Hall, the department enjoys a fusion of teaching faculty, Cooperative Extension specialists, professional researchers, international scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, and academic and staff support. The department's work on fundamental and applied problems has led to ground-breaking scientific discoveries, integrated pest management approaches in California's agricultural and urban environments, management of insect-vectored human diseases and a global impact that stretches from UC Davis to Africa and South America and beyond, Leal said.

The Entomology Department is the home of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, which houses more than seven million specimens; including the Jepson Prairie Reserve in Vacaville, the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, the UC Davis Superfund Basic Research and Training and the statewide UC Mosquito Research Program.

Department faculty housed at the UC Kearney Agricultural Center, Parlier, conduct research involving insect-plant interactions, economy entomology, and mosquito-borne diseases, such as West Nile virus and malaria. In addition, related research spans a variety of UC ecological preserves and biological field stations, including the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve in the Vaca Mountains; Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center, in Northern California's foothills; Sagehen Creek Field Station, near Truckee; Jepson Prairie Reserve in Vacaville; Bodega Marine Reserve; Hopland Field State near Ukiah; Wolfskill Experiment Orchard in Winters; UC South Coast Research and Extension Center in Irvine; and the Blodgett Experimental Forest in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Graduate students in the entomology program, or housed in entomology, conduct research in insect demography, medical entomology, insect systematics, biological control, integrated pest management, insect biochemistry, insect ecology, insect pathology, biology and evolution of insects, aquatic ecology, insect physiology, environmental toxicology, apiculture, horticultural entomology, and insect vectors of plant pathogens.

Many of the UC Davis Department of Entomology alumni now chair entomology departments at other universities or hold higher administrative posts; head professional scientific organizations; or lead teams advancing scientific studies. Fifty-five alumni hold university faculty positions.