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October 31, 2016

Posted by entomology.office | November 8, 2016

Announcements

The next faculty meetings will be on Wednesday, November 23, 2016, at 10:30 AM-11:30 AM.  The AMS dial # is: 5704304.

Adrian Marshall will be doing his PhD Preliminary Exam on Monday, November 7, 2016.  His seminar will be at 2-3 PM in FSHN 354 with the exam to follow in FSHN 164. His seminar is titled “Exclusion efficacy and non-target Effects of Shade Netting in Orchards.” Adrian is advised by Betsy Beers.  The AMS dial # for his seminar is: 5709250.  The dial # for his exam is 5704099.

Adekunle Adesanya will be presenting his research proposal on Monday, November 7, 2016 at 2-3 PM in FSHN 354, as part of the Entomology Colloquium.  His seminar is titled “Characterizing Acaricide Resistance in the Two-Spotted Mite Tetranychus urticae Koch.” Kunle is advised by Doug Walsh.  The AMS dial # for his seminar is: 5709250.

Jonathan S. O’Hearn will be doing his Master of Science defense on November 8, 2016, beginning with the seminar at 1:00 PM in FSHN 164 followed by his final exam.  The title of his thesis is: “Evaluating the Toxicity of Candidate Organic and Conventional Insecticides on Western Grape Leafhopper (Erythroneura elegantula) and Virginia Creeper Leafhopper (Erythoneura ziczac) (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) Under Vineyard and Laboratory Conditions.”  The exam will be originating from Prosser.  Jonathon is advised by Doug Walsh.  The AMS dial # is: 5704257. A copy of Jonathan’s thesis is available at the Entomology SharePoint page under announcements.

Graduate Health Insurance for 2017-18 will continue:  The U.S. Department of Labor has decided to continue to allow subsidized student health insurance coverage! The report says it “will not assert that a premium reduction arrangement offered by an institution of higher education fails to satisfy PHS Act Section 2711 or 2713 if the arrangement is offered in connection with student health insurance coverage.”  See below a link to the recent announcement from the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury regarding graduate student health insurance.  This announcement means that WSU can continue to offer the graduate student health insurance program as we have in the past with no penalties.  The Graduate School is in the process of updating our offer letter template for this admission cycle, and it will include reference to a health insurance benefit for eligible graduate students.  Please access the templates at https://gradschool.wsu.edu/assistantships/.

The Federal Clarification on Subsidized Graduate Assistant SHIP Coverage memo is attached.

2016/2017 Entomology Travel Scholarship Proposal. We are opening the application period for this year’s endowment-funded travel award applications.  If you are planning on attending a professional meeting and making a presentation or preparing a poster, you should consider applying for one of these endowments.  Applications will be open until 5pm on November 10th. There are four travel awards, each tied to one of our endowments where the donor asked that their money be used to support student travel. The student that wins each award receives the entire yield of that endowment, which typically ranges from $200-600 depending on market conditions and the size of the original donation. The goal is to highlight the generous gifts made by each donor by tying each award to a specific endowment.  Two endowments, Hastings and Telford, fund travel for “Early Career” students. This would include exceptional undergraduates, MS students, or students on a “straight to PhD” track that are early in their training. Two endowments, Getzin and Tamaki, fund travel for “Later Career” students. The faculty review committee will judge whether students qualify as early or later career, based on each year’s applicant pool. So, students don’t have to specify which type of award they are applying for.  In all cases, applications have three components, which should be emailed to Adam at adam.williams@wsu.edu:

  1. A 500 word (or less) essay from the student concisely explaining why you deserve the award. You might describe the significance of your presentation (is it an invited talk? is this a major national meeting? have you recently submitted or published particularly significant findings?), specific plans to build ties with possible postdoc advisors or other collaborators, etc. Travel awards can also be used to meet with collaborators outside of a national meeting; the need for this should be justified.
  2. The student’s updated CV.
  3. A 250 word (or less) memo from the major advisor describing why they feel their student is deserving of the award.

Please get in touch with any of the committee members if you have questions. Research and recognition awards have a separate deadline in the spring and will be described in a future email.

The Student Awards Committee, Betsy Beers, Fang (Rose) Zhu, and Rich Zack.

The WSU Extension Gardening Team is seeking graduate student authors and co-authors for extension publications for Master Gardeners. Contact Catherine Daniels cdaniels@wsu.edu to discuss possible topics and the FastTrack publication process. See the attached handout for more information.  The below links are examples of extension bulletins published through this process.  http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/PNW640/PNW640.pdf and

http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/FS089E/FS089E.pdf

Want to recruit excellent scholars to your program for Fall 2017? Consider nominating students for the Graduate School’s Research Assistantships for Diverse Scholars (RADS), which are intended to increase access and opportunities to graduate education for U.S. students from underrepresented/underserved communities and to increase graduate student diversity in our degree programs and Washington State University. Applications for RADS are due Monday, February 9th, 2017 at 5pm.  As an additional incentive, the Campus Visitation Program provides RADS nominees with a unique opportunity to visit WSU and meet with departments and communities on campus. The Campus Visitation Program has served as a powerful recruiting incentive for prospective WSU graduate students. Only students who are nominated for RADS or have been offered funding from the prospective department, will be eligible to participate in the Campus Visitation Program.  The campus visit will take place on the Pullman campus, March 5th- 8th, 2017.  For more information about guidelines and eligibility, and the RADS/ Campus Visitation Program nomination form, please visit our website: https://gradschool.wsu.edu/research-assistantship-for-diverse-scholars/  and feel free to send questions to gs.rads@wsu.edu.

The Entomology Graduate Student Association is making a beneficial insects calendar. If you are interested in donating images for this project, email Abigail Cohen at abigail.cohen@wsu.edu.

Versatile Ph.D. University Subscription: Did you know that WSU graduate students have access to the Versatile Ph.D. Program? Founded by Dr. Paula Chambers, Versatile Ph.D. is designed to prepare graduate students to excel in nonacademic careers. All you need is your WSU login to access information, including:

  • Discovering interesting career paths
  • Job listings appropriate for Ph.D.’s
  • Networking with successful Ph.D.’s nationwide
WSU UPCOMING NOMINATIONS
Award Information/Application Deadline
WSU President’s Employee Excellence Award https://president.wsu.edu/employee-excellence/ Monday, November 9, 2016, at 5:00pm
Faculty Awards and Recognition https://faculty.wsu.edu/awards/featured-faculty/ Ongoing

The Office of Emergency Management and Environmental Health & Safety sent an email out that said that all laboratories must have a power outage plan.  Power outages impact WSU buildings differently, based upon the back-up power systems available and the cause of the outage. In general, only the life-safety systems within a building, e.g. emergency lighting, exit signs, fire sprinkler systems, are assured emergency power. Back-up power to almost all other building systems is subject to the availability of limited back-up/emergency generator capacity. Do not assume your building has back-up power, even buildings or building systems with emergency generators may be subject to outages if the generator is down. Emergency power may not be immediately available. See the attachment for the complete email that outlines what systems are impacted by power outages and recommendations.

*****

Employment

See attachment for details on these positions.

  1. Postdoc Fellow, Auburn Univ., Auburn, AL
  2. Geospatial Analyst, Oak Ridge Assoc. Universities, Research Triangle Park, NC
  3. Research Project Coordinator, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE
  4. Laboratory Manager (CASS & USDA), State of California and USDA, Riverside, CA
  5. Research Assistant Professor, Ent Dept., Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS
  6. Field Research Assistant/Tech, NW Contract Research, Brewster, WA
  7. Postdoc Fellow, Washington St. Univ., Pullman, WA
  8. Research Specialist, PSES Univ. of Idaho, Kimberly, ID
  9. Asst/Assoc Prof of Forest Health, CA Poly St Univ., San Luis Obispo, CA

*****

Don’t forget to set you’re your clocks back one-hour on Saturday night, Nov. 5.

Sign up for Mental Health First Aid training:  Interested in learning how to how to help someone who is developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis? Join Health & Wellness Services for Mental Health First Aid training on October 13 or December 13th.  Learn how you can identify, understand and respond to signs of mental illnesses and substance use disorders. Get details on the program and see this semester’s training schedule: https://hws.wsu.edu/mental-health-first-aid/

The 2017 BIOAg request for proposals is now available!  The RFP is available on the BIOAg Grant Program<http://csanr.wsu.edu/csanr-grants/bioag-grant-program/> webpage. Letter of intent are requested by Nov. 18th, and project proposals are due Dec. 14th.  For more info contact Tara Zimmerman (goldsmitht@wsu.edu).

Please consider nominating deserving graduate students from your unit for these awards. Nominees for each scholarship should be sent directly to Alanna Ellis (acellis@wsu.edu) in the Academic Programs Office. CAHNRS deadline for nominees for all but the Graduate School Recruitment Scholarship for STEM Disciplines is Thursday, December 8, 2016.  Rich Zack, Interim Associate Dean of Academic Programs will make final selections for the college and submit nominations by the Graduate School deadline.

Effective January 2017, pesticide handlers and workers must be trained on an annual basis and training records must be kept. This is a big change from previous training intervals. For those who wish a copy of the new rules, you’ll find it here: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-11-02/pdf/2015-25970.pdf  and the summary or new rules starts on page 67502.  Please make sure you review your training calendars, recordkeeping and content in order to be in compliance by January 1, 2017. For more info contact Catherine Daniels (cdaniels@wsu.edu)

2017 Pacific Branch Entomological Society of America meeting will be  April 2-5, 2017 at the Hilton DoubleTree in Portland, OR.

Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting will be November 5-8, 2017 in Denver, CO. Program Symposia and Workshop submissions are now open.  http://www.entsoc.org/events/annual-meeting.

Washington State Commission on Pesticide Registration has released the call for 2017 Request Proposals.

Proposals will be presented at the December 13 and 14, 2016 meeting in Ellensburg.  See attachment for more details and application form.