Louie Yang, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will speak at the Pacific Coast Entomological Society (PCES) meeting on Saturday, January 24. The event is scheduled for 1 p.m. in Room 122 of Briggs Hall at the University of California, Davis.
Yang’s presentation is titled “Why I Study Insect Ecology in the Field.” His research focuses on monarch butterflies and milkweed. He aims to understand how ecological communities interact over time and how these interactions are affected by factors such as climate change. “I am working to develop a temporally explicit view of ecology that examines how ecological communities combine complex, coordinated and changing interactions over time,” Yang states in his abstract. “I am particularly interested in the effects of climate change on species interactions, community responses to strong perturbation events, phenological cues and phenological shifts, and seasonal changes in the nature and outcomes of species interactions. I study several different organisms in a wide range of ecological communities, each of which contributes to a broader understanding of how species interactions change over time.”
Yang serves as chair of the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Program. He is also one of three co-founders and co-directors of the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology at UC Davis, which began in 2011 to support student research through faculty mentoring.
Originally from Australia but raised in West Virginia, Yang joined UC Davis as faculty in 2009. He received several awards including the UC Davis Academic Senate’s Distinguished Teaching Award for undergraduate teaching in 2024. Other honors include a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Award (2013-2018), selection as a Hellman Fellow (2012), Chancellor’s Teaching Fellow Award (2015), and Atwood Colloquium Rising Star Award in Ecology from the University of Toronto (2015). Yang holds degrees from Cornell University (bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolution) and UC Davis (doctorate in population biology).
After Yang’s talk, attendees will visit the Bohart Museum of Entomology to learn about insects collected during fieldwork in Belize. Fran Keller, president of PCES and professor at Folsom Lake College as well as an entomology lecturer with UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, said she helped collect many specimens now housed at Bohart Museum.
The PCES meeting will also be available via Zoom for those unable to attend on campus. Registration details can be obtained by contacting Fran Keller at kellerm@flc.losrios.edu.
The Bohart Museum houses approximately eight million insect specimens and is located at Room 1124 Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane at UC Davis. Jason Bond serves as museum director; he also holds positions within the Department of Entomology and Nematology as well as being executive associate dean for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Resources.
