Food Scientist and Professor Annie J King

Annie Joyce King, Professor and food scientist in the Department of Animal Science, passed away unexpectedly in early April 2025 at the age of 76. She was born and raised in North Carolina. After completion of a PhD in Food Science at North Carolina State University in 1983, Dr. King was recruited to the Department of Avian Sciences at UC Davis to provide expertise in food science and advance the quality of poultry meat and eggs. Avian Sciences merged with the Department of Animal Science in 1998, and she transferred to the new Department of Animal Science. All who knew Professor King were impressed by the incredible amount of enthusiasm, original thinking, professionalism, and positive attitude that she brought to everything she did. A quote from her colleague Dick Grau, now deceased, summarizes her academic life “Annie’s good humor, clear sense of direction, intelligence and firmness makes it a pleasure to work with and be led by her”. Those who don’t know Professor King might remember seeing an ultra-professional woman in high heels charging around campus with a purpose.

Her research focused on the detection and prevention of lipid oxidation in poultry meat and egg products. In particular, she explored feeding agricultural processing waste to poultry as a source of antioxidants and carotenoid pigments to improve the wellbeing of the animals and the nutritional value and shelf life of the resulting products. Most of her research used refuse from processing California grown rice, tomatoes, olives, broccoli, grapes, and sunflowers as well as utilizing fermented wastage from grocery stores. Examples include the repurposing of antioxidants and other nutrients from the extraction of olive oil or from tomato pomace, an agricultural waste consisting of peels, cores, seeds and green tomatoes. A complementary focus was to improve methodologies for determining oxidative products from fatty acids and cholesterol that develop during the processing and storage of poultry meat and eggs. These inventive nutritional applications and improved analytical techniques allowed her to make recommendations to poultry producers and processors for improving the nutritional quality and palatability of their products.

Prof. King treasured everything about teaching and brought her special talents for engaging students to not only help them excel in the subject matter of the classes but also in their professional development and success in their careers. She taught the historically essential courses in poultry production and management but also developed new and innovative courses including those on “Birds, Humans and the Environment” and the broader topics of “Science and Society.” Most importantly, Prof. King spent tremendous effort to help, guide and advise students during their time at UC Davis and throughout their subsequent careers.

Prof. King excelled in committee, administrative, and minority development activities on campus. As an Associate Professor, she was asked to assist in leading the contentious merger between the Avian Sciences and the Animal Science departments, among the oldest departments established at UC Davis. There were many difficult discussions within and among groups of each department. She was cool-headed and helped to bring factions together. Her reputation for moderating disputes and solving problems resulted in her appointment by Dean Barbara Schneeman to Associate Dean of Undergraduate Academic Programs in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES) and she served in this role for 11 years (1994 -2005) working across two administrations. Professor emeritus and former Dean of CA&ES Neal Van Alfen remarked that “Annie was a delight to work with - she was an exception to the adage that universities are fueled by big egos.  She was always selfless in her approach to solving the issues that we often faced in the dean's office.  Students could not have had a better advocate than Annie; but she always found a way to advance the needs of students and her staff in a non-confrontational, gentle manner.  The one word that comes to mind in my memory of Annie is that she was joyful.” Professor emeritus and former Executive Associate Dean of CA&ES Jim MacDonald shared “Annie was already an associate dean at the time I was appointed executive associate dean and we overlapped for about 6 years. I found her fun to work with because she was never shy about saying what she really thought about a subject. Especially if the subject involved students. She put students first in all her interactions in the dean’s office. What made her especially fun to work with was her ever-present sense of humor. I can still remember her laugh. I appreciated how she found ways to see humor in subjects that were giving the rest of us heartburn. She actually made working in the dean’s office fun. I was very sorry to hear of her passing. She was a one-of-a-kind sort of person and will be sorely missed.”

After leaving the CA&ES Dean’s Office, Prof. King continued her leadership in the Science and Society Program and the Center for Leadership Learning at UC Davis. She was a member of Class 30 of the California Agricultural Leadership Program and served on the core faculty for the program at Davis. She was also a faculty advisor and instructor for the Contemporary Leadership Minor, part of the Science and Society Program, which is affiliated with the Center for Leadership Learning at UC Davis. Prof. King is known to many as the face and energy behind the Multiculturalism in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) program, which facilitated and enriched the lives of many underrepresented students at UC Davis.

Prof. King was a devoted mother to her daughter Denali and granny to her grandchildren. Her love for them was memorialized by authoring a series of children’s books, the first of which (Granny Annie Lives at the Airport) was published in 2009. She will be affectionately missed by her family, friends, students, and colleagues.

We have set up an online tribute page for those that wish to share memories and photographs in honor of Prof. King’s life and work: www.online-tribute.com/AnnieJKing

A memorial celebration will be held Fall 2025. Please check back on the Department of Animal Science website for further details.