Her appointment, announced last week by Neal Van Alfen, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, was confirmed Monday, March 10 by Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef. She will serve until July 2009.
Chemical ecologist Walter Leal, professor of entomology, served as chair from July 2006 through February. The chair is a rotational position shared among faculty.
Kimsey, professor of entomology and an insect taxonomist specializing in bees and wasps and insect diversity, joined the UC Davis faculty in 1989. She received her doctorate in entomology in 1979. She has served as director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology since 1989.
Kimsey said she plans to follow the tradition of the late Richard Bohart by bringing her microscope to the chair's office. Bohart, who was Kimsey's major professor, chaired the department from 1956 to 1965 and retired in 1980 as an emeritus professor. During his career, Bohart identified more than one million mosquitoes and wasps, many now displayed at the Bohart Museum, a teaching, research and public service facility that he founded on campus in 1946. The museum collection totals more than seven million specimens, and focuses on terrestrial and fresh water invertebrates.
Kimsey's other office is in Academy Surge, where the Bohart Museum is housed.
As to future plans, “We're continuing to build up our bee biology program,” Kimsey said. “We'll be hiring a bee pollination biologist soon and are now accepting applications for the Häagen-Dazs Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.” The premier ice cream company recently donated $100,000 to the Laidlaw facility to address the bee population decline.
“I can empathize with colony collapse disorder (CCD) because the hive we have in our backyard in Davis is the victim of CCD,” she said. “The bees vanished, leaving all the honey there.”
The faculty completed interviews for the bee pollination biologist in January. The new position will be housed at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus.
Kimsey's husband, Robert Kimsey, a forensic entomologist, is an adjunct professor in the department.
The Department of Entomology is ranked No. 1 in the country by the Chronicle of Higher Education, considered the top news and job-information source for college and university faculty members, administrators, and students.