UC Davis Names Annual Alumni Award Winner

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

DAVIS, CA -- Jennifer Thaler, a professor at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., is the 2017 recipient of the Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Award from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Thaler will be honored at a reception from 3:30 to 4:15 on Thursday, Feb. 9 at the International House, located at 10 College Park, Davis. Following the reception, she will present a seminar in the International House conference room from 4:15 to 5 p.m. on "Tritrophic Interactions and the Ecology of Fear."

Her areas of expertise are population and community ecology, plant-insect interactions, tri-trophic interactions and chemical ecology.

"I study the ecological interactions between plants, herbivores, and carnivores in wild and agricultural Solanaceous plant species," she says. "My approach focuses on understanding behavioral and phytochemical mechanisms of such tri-trophic interactions, testing theory on the organization of multi-trophic communities, and generating novel strategies to control insect pests."

Thaler received her bachelor of science degree in biology, cum laude, from Wellesley College in 1993 and her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis with major professor Rick Karban in 1999.

After receiving her doctoral degree, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher for a year at Wageningen Agricultural University, the Netherlands, and then served at the University of Toronto as an assistant professor of botany from 2000 to 2004. She joined the Cornell University faculty in 2004 as an assistant professor, advancing to associate in 2006, and to full professor in 2015.

Kathy Keatley Garvey is a communications specialist with UC Davis' Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Photo via Kathy Keatley Garvey