Jan. 6, 2009
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| Louie Yang, new member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
DAVIS—Community ecologist Louie Yang, who received his doctorate in population biology at the University of California, Davis, in 2006, has joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology as an assistant professor, effective Jan. 2.
“Louie is one of our rising stars,” said Lynn Kimsey, chair of the Department of Entomology and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. “His work on resource pulses has led to the creation of a new field of ecological study.”
“It’s great to be back,” Yang said. “UC Davis is truly one of the best places on the plant to study ecology, and it’s an honor to be a faculty member here. I’m looking forward to it immensely.”
Yang’s research interests include community ecology, species interactions, temporal variation, extreme events in nature, and the integration of ontogeny and phenology.
“My research program studies how resource pulses, disturbance events and the timing of species interactions affect ecological communities,” Yang said. “I describe myself as a community ecologist. Much of my research is aimed at understanding the temporal dimension of ecological communities: How do natural systems respond to changing conditions?”
His work emphasizes “the fundamental idea that ecological systems are constantly changing over multiple time scales.”
“I investigate community responses to ecological perturbations along a continuum of temporal scales, including extreme events as well as longer time-scale climate changes.”
Yang said a mechanistic understanding of how communities respond to changing conditions “is relevant to several conceptually and socially important issues in ecology.”
As a doctoral student, Yang studied under UC Davis entomology professor Rick Karban.
Before joining the UC Davis faculty, Yang served as a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology at UC Santa Barbara.
Yang received his bachelor’s degree in biology (ecology and evolution) from Cornell University in 1999.
Yang’s lab and office are at 380 Briggs Hall.
His wife, Tabatha Yang, is the former children’s program manager at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Beginning this year, she is engaging in public outreach for two UC Davis museums, the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, and the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
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--Kathy Keatley Garvey Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
