Department's Fall Seminars Announced

Lisa Baik, assistant professor of insect biology and the coordinator of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's seminars for the 2026-27 academic year, has announced the list of speakers and their topics.

All seminars will take place on Wednesdays from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall and will be hybrid. The Zoom link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.

The schedule:

Wednesday, Sept. 30: 
“Citrus Entomology and the Impact on Global Fruit Production"
Godwin Nutifafa Gidiglo
Entomologist, Postdoctoral Scholar
UC Davis Department of Environmental Toxicology

Wednesday, Oct. 7:
"Choreographing Reproduction: Redefining Sex Steroid Hormone Mechanisms in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes"
Mackenzie Yedlin, PhD Candidate 
The Rockefeller University

Wednesday, Oct. 14:
"Evolutionary Genomics of the Drosophila Sperm Storage System"
Rachel Thayer, Postdoctoral Scholar
David Begun Lab, UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology

Wednesday, Oct. 21:
"Evolution and Stability of Interdependence in Insect–Microbe Symbioses"
Younghwan Kwak, Ph.D
University of California, Merced

Wednesday, Oct. 28:
To Be Determined
Shahid Siddique, Professor
UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Wednesday, Nov. 4:
“Advancing Data Generation, Integration, and Application to Mitigate Insect Declines”
Mike Belitz, Assistant Professor 
Department of Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison 

Wednesday, Nov. 18:
"Chromosomes, Genomes, and Beyond: Unraveling the Evolution and Pathogenicity of Plant-Parasitic Nematodes"
Dadong Dai, Postdoctoral Researcher
UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Wednesday, Dec. 2:
To Be Determined
Marm Kilpatrick, Professor
Department of Ecology an Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz

Our Seminar Coordinator

Lisa Baik, a UC Davis alumna and mosquito researcher, joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in the fall of 2025 from Yale University, where she was a postdoctoral researcher. 

As a UC Davis undergraduate, Lisa double-majored, obtaining twp degrees in 2011: a bachelor of science degree in neurobiology, physiology and behavior, and a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. Her other UC Davis connections:

• She was affiliated with the Early Start Lab, MIND Institute at the UC Davis Medical Center for almost four years, first as a research assistant in 2009 and advancing to junior specialist, 2011-2013.
• She is an alumna of the lab of molecular geneticist and physiologist Joanna Chiu, now professor and chair of ENT-NEM. In the Chiu lab,  Baik investigated molecular and biochemical changes of circadian clock proteins in Drosophila from 2011 to 2013. 

Baik holds a doctorate (2019) in physiology and biophysics from UC Irvine. Studying with major professor Todd Holmes, she completed her dissertation on “Short Wavelength Light-Evoked Responses of Drosophila and Mosquitoes.” In her research, she investigated the role of novel photoreceptors in Drosophila and light-modulated behaviors in mosquitoes; discovered that circadian clock and specific light properties coordinate light-induced  behaviors in both fruit flies and mosquitoes; and discovered the distinct circadian neural circuits of daytime- and nighttime-active mosquito species. This work resulted in five first-author and two second- author publications, in Nature, PNAS and Current Biology.

At Yale University, she served as a postdoctoral researcher for six years in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, working in the lab of John Carlson, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. (See news story) 

For more information on the seminars or for technology assistance, contact Baik at [email protected].