Faculty Recognition

Animal Science Faculty Recognized for Excellence
Calvert Joins Animal Science Distinguished Teacher List

Five past Animal Science recipients of the campus Distinguished Teaching Award attended a dinner in honor of the most recent awardee, Chris Calvert. No other department can boast five of these awards to its faculty in a period of six years. These awards reflect the high value that Animal Science places on students and teaching.

Gary Anderson (1992), Chris Calvert (2003), Tom Famula (1999) and Anita Oberbauer (2002). Photographer: Debbie Aldridge

Oltjen Receives ASAS Extension Award

Dr. James Oltjen, Cooperative Extension specialist, received the American Society of Animal Science Extension (ASAS) Award for 2003. The award, sponsored by Pfizer Animal Health, was presented to Jim at the ASAS annual meeting in Phoenix. Jim is an internationally recognized authority on systems analysis for animal production. He is a leader in applying mathematical models and computer techniques on farms and ranches. He stresses the need to integrate disciplinary knowledge, economic considerations, and practical experience into research and extension programs. His efforts are in animal enterprise management, natural resource monitoring and modeling, and livestock quality assurance programs, with simultaneous computer decision aid development. Jim holds a B.S. with honors in physics (1975) and an M.S. in animal science (1978) from Kansas State University. He received the Ph.D. in nutrition at UC Davis in 1983. After seven years on the faculty at Oklahoma State University, he returned to UC Davis as a specialist in Cooperative Extension in 1990. He has authored more than 100 limited distribution papers or abstracts, presented 19 national or international invited papers and published more than 65 refereed journal articles. He is a past president of the Western Section of the ASAS, chaired the national ASAS Extension Committee (1995) and acted as local chairman in charge of the highly successful Western Section ASAS meeting that was held at the University of California, Davis, in June 2000. He received the Western Section ASAS Extension Award in 1997.

Gall Recognized as Founder

At the 21st anniversary meeting of the International Association for Genetics in Aquaculture (IAGA) in Chile in November, 2003, Dr. Graham A.E. Gall, professor emeritus in the Department of Animal Science, was recognized as the organization’s founding father and one of its most active members. In 1985, while organizing an aquaculture symposium at UC Davis, Graham drafted a simple constitution for an organization to ensure the symposium would continue into the future and gave the group its current name. Those in attendance (about 125) accepted the draft, and IAGA was formed. Graham was subsequently elected secretary/treasurer, a position he held until 2000.

Genetics Symposium Honors Professor Abbott

The Ursula K. Abbott Symposium on Developmental Genetics and Teratology was held on February 20, 2004, at the Walter A. Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center at UC Davis. The College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and the Department of Animal Science hosted the symposium honoring Professor Emerita Abbott. Presentations given by an internationally recognized panel of speakers related to research accomplishments from Dr. Abbott’s distinguished career in avian sciences at UC Davis. Several of the speakers were her students and others continue to have active collaborations with her. Gifts to help support genetic lines of birds (see p. 3) may be made to the Avian Genetic Fund in the Department of Animal Science.

Professor Emerita Abbott enjoyed visiting with Roger Sawyer (left), her first postdoctoral researcher many years ago, now at University of South Carolina, and Paul Goetinck (right), from Harvard University, her first graduate student, at a conference held in her honor.

Meyer’s Work with Dairy Regulations Recognized by EPA

Dr. Deanne Meyer from our department and Dr. Mike Payne, a colleague in the Department of Environmental Toxicology, were selected from more than 150 nominees and awarded the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2004 Environmental Award for Outstanding Achievement for Region IX for their work to create and maintain the California Dairy Quality Assurance Program (CDQAP). Their program brings together a diverse group of 16 government, university, industry and environmental interests. Dairies are regulated by a complex and overlapping array of federal, state and regional/local requirements that are constantly evolving. The effort seeks to help California dairy producers meet environmental requirements relating to manure management. Drs. Meyer and Payne work with members of the partnership to develop educational programs designed to achieve compliance. Dairy producers can participate in this voluntary program, which includes the Environmental Stewardship Short Course, work with their creamery field staff or trade association staff to develop an “environmental stewardship farm management plan” and then go through an independent on-site evaluation by a third party. Dairies now have a “one-stop shop” where they can go to find out what they need to do and get assistance in doing it. For more information about CDQAP environmental stewardship, call 866-662-3727.

Cooperative Extension Specialist Deanne Meyer samples a dairy treatment pond.