Dean Helene Dillard of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences announced two changes in her leadership team:

• Animal science professor Anita Oberbauer moves up to executive associate dean, succeeding Ron Tjeerdema, professor of environmental toxicology, who stepped down.
• Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, Department of Entomology and Nematology, succeeds Oberbauer as associate dean for agricultural sciences.

Oberbauer earned a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology at UC Davis, graduating with highest honors in 1980. She earned a Ph.D. in animal science from Cornell University and then completed postdoctoral fellowships in perinatal biology at Loma Linda University and biological chemistry at UCLA prior to joining the UC Davis faculty in 1989. Her research program comprises two areas of emphasis: growth and development focusing on the skeleton in driving the relationship between skeletal size and body composition, and the genetic basis for health disorders and other traits in dogs and cattle. She received the 2018-19 UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement.

Bond holds a B.S. degree in biology from Western Carolina University and a Ph.D. in evolutionary systematics and genetics from Virginia Tech. He joined the UC Davis faculty in 2018. “The primary focus of my research program is the discovery, conservation, and investigation of the pattern and processes responsible for the diversity of life,” he says on his faculty webpage. 

On a related note, Bond recently was named co-editor-in-chief of the journal Insect Systematics and Diversity, published by the Entomological Society of America. He and co-editor-in-chief Hojun Song, associate professor of entomology at Texas A&M University, will serve four-year terms beginning Jan. 1. Read more in Entomology and Nematology News.