2014 Highlights: UC IPM Annual Report

New Advisors

Emily Symmes (Photo by M. Phillips)

Emily Symmes began working as the new IPM advisor covering the northern Sacramento Valley in June 2014. Symmes, who earned BS, MS, and PhD degrees in entomology from UC Riverside and UC Davis, is responsible for developing and delivering IPM programs for commodities produced in the region.

Since starting as an IPM advisor, Symmes worked with other UC farm advisors and specialists, growers, industry representatives, pest control advisers, and other crop management professionals to identify critical pest management needs and outline strategies for addressing these issues. She is currently pursuing a number of projects in local commodities, including almonds, walnuts, olives, and kiwifruit, and looks forward to addressing critical research needs and extending timely and relevant pest management information to the agricultural community.

Niamh Quinn (Photo by N. Quinn)

Niamh Quinn is the newest affiliated advisor with UC IPM. She is the UCCE area vertebrate pest advisor based at the South Coast Research and Extension Center in Irvine.

Quinn facilitates interactions and information exchange among campus-based academics, UCCE advisors and community stakeholders. Her focus is the coordination of UCCE programming regarding human-wildlife conflicts. In particular, Quinn will focus within residential and industrial areas where significant human-wildlife conflicts are occurring. She will work in Southern California, concentrating in Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties. Human-wild life conflicts include increasingly critical issues such as negative impacts of wild or feral mammals and birds in agricultural production, food safety, public health and safety, forestry, and natural resource conservation.

Quinn's plans include setting up the Southern California Urban Wildlife Management Council, updating the UC ground squirrel best management practices website, examining urban rodent fecundity, working with Orange County cities to help resolve coyote issues and developing a UC Master Gardener workshop on vertebrate pest control.

Previous research efforts have focused on human-wildlife conflicts in California nut crops and lowland rice ecosystems in Southeast Asia. Quinn earned a BS in zoology and PhD in small mammal ecology, both from National University of Ireland, Galway.