Posts Tagged: Helene Dillard
Congrats to Newly Appointed Associate Dean Jason Bond!
Congratulations to Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and...
To Boldly Go, and the Chancellor Did: To an Insect Museum!
“To Boldy Go.” UC Davis Chancellor Gary May, a Star Trek enthusiast, coined that theme last year when he launched the university's...
Lynn Kimsey (far right), director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, talks about the history of the insect museum to UC Davis Chancellor Gary May and Dean Helene Dillard (center) of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. In back are Steve Nadler, chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematmology; undergraduate students Emma Cluff and Lohit Garikipati and Nann Fangue, current chair of the Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology Department. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum, shows monarch butterfly specimens to Chancellor Gary May and Dean Helene Dillard, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis entomology student and Entomology Club secretary Lohit Garikipati, introduces Martha, an adult orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus, to UC Davis Chancellor Gary May and Dean Helene Dillard of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis entomology student and Bohart associate Wade Spencer shows Hamilton, his scorpion, to Dean Helene Dillard of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, UC Davis Chancellor Gary May and Steve Nadler (far right), chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis Chancellor Gary May and Dean Helene Dillard of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences check out the specimens being sorted by UC Davis student Dannie Nguyen. Next to the chancellor are Lynn Kimsey director of the Bohart Museum, and student Minsu Kang. At left are students Ivana Satre (foreground) and Dinguan Peng. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis Commencement Speaker: Upholding the Standard of a Healthy Flatworm
“Nematodes” and “commencement” don't usually appear together in the same sentence. But they did when UC Davis student Hannah...
Student speaker Hannah Trumbull is flanked by Helene Dillard, dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and UC Davis Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph Hexter.
New Davis ag dean has Cooperative Extension roots
The newly appointed dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis, Helene Dillard, has served as director of Cooperative Extension at Cornell University since 2002, according to a news release by Pat Bailey of UC Davis News Service.
Dillard is a California native. She earned a bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley in 1977. She continued her studies at UC Davis, earning a master’s degree in soil science in 1979 and a doctoral degree in plant pathology in 1984.
She recalls that her passion for Cooperative Extension began when, as a graduate student, she worked with Salinas Valley growers and extension specialists on solving the problem of “lettuce drop,” a disease caused by the fungus Sclerotinia minor, the release said.
In a video posted with the news release, Dillard comments specifically about Cooperative Extension. She said modern Cooperative Extension has a key role in providing accurate, unbiased information to industry.
"There’s lots of information on the Internet, there’s information overload," Dillard said. "Where Cooperative Extension comes in, being able to provide the research-based, evidence-based information, stuff that has been proven and tested, and being able to provide that to stakeholder groups."
Dillard suggests that Cooperative Extension can help inform policymakers make decisions.
"It’s not our decision to make," she explains. "What I mean by that, especially in New York, we’ve had lots of discussion about fracking and drilling for gas. What we’ve been able to do is provide information around what we know is true so far and where we don’t have information. And then leaders in those communities decide what their approach will be. And I think moving forward, Cooperative Extension will be so important to be out there as an unbiased source of information so everyone will know the facts and be able to act accordingly on whatever issues they face."