Friends of Integrated Pest Management Award Nominations still open!

The Southern IPM Center still has it's Friends of IPM Award Nominations open.  The program recognizes outstanding work in IPM in the southern region. We have two kinds of awards: one for IPM professionals and one for graduate students.

Deadline for nominations is Friday, December 18, 2015.

You'll find the Calls for Nomination for these awards, along with cover forms, at http://projects.ipmcenters.org/Southern/public/ListRFAs.cfm . Click on the nomination call that you wish to use to get to the Call documents and the nomination form. You will be using our Proposal / Project Management System (PPMS) to submit your nominations this year, so please be sure to find the instructions for that in the Call for Nomination and follow the steps. 

Professional awards:

There are 6 categories of awards: 

• Bright Idea (research-oriented or new idea)
• IPM Implementer (on the ground)
• IPM Educator (extension or teacher)
• Pulling Together (group)
• Future Leader (young professional)
• Lifetime Achievement (seasoned professional). 

The award is open to anyone in the region demonstrating excellence in the field of IPM. In fact, they welcome the opportunity to recognize those outside of the university setting, such as growers, school IPM coordinators, teachers, etc. 

Award winners will be publicly recognized at an event of their choice.

The Call for Nominations for the professional awards is at http://bit.ly/1Pq4nPa .

Graduate Student awards:

The Friends of Southern IPM graduate student award will go to two graduate students: one Masters student and one Ph.D. student.

The graduate student award, in addition to a public presentation of the award, comes with a sizable monetary award. The winning Masters student receives $2,000, and the winning doctoral student receives $3,000. All winners—including in the professional category—must assist with a story about their work or conduct a webinar before receiving the financial award. Please read the Call for Nominations for more information.

This year, each department can nominate UP TO 3 Masters students and UP TO 3 Ph.D. students. Each department can submit up to six nominations, and universities can submit from more than one department (I.e., entomology, plant pathology, weed science, horticulture, etc. departments can submit from the same university).

The Call for Nominations for the graduate student awards is at http://bit.ly/1jZj8MY .

Nominations for both award programs consist of a cover form and a two-page written nomination. Additional materials may be submitted in support of the nomination but are not necessary. The bulk of the description and evidence of the person’s or group’s qualifications of the award should be in the two-page nomination, NOT in the additional materials.

Please share this notice with anyone you work with who may wish to nominate someone for either of these awards.

If you have any questions about either of these awards, or you have trouble navigating the PPMS system, please direct them to Henry Fadamiro at fadamhy@auburn.edu or 334-844-5098 or Rosemary Hallberg at rhallberg@sripmc.org or 919-513-8182.

Search for New Director of Western IPM Center

The University of California's Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) department is in pursuit of filling the Director, Western Integrated Pest Management Center (Academic Coordinator III) position.

According to UC ANR, they are "seeking a Director to assume leadership for its Western IPM Center (WIPMC) within the UC Statewide IPM Program." The director will be responsible for the WIPMC staff as well as managing the operations of WIPMC.

Other responsibilities will include communication with WIPMC's Advisory and Steering Committees and collaboration with other agencies.

Minimum and Required Qualifications:
This position focuses on Integrated Pest Management.

• A minimum of a Master’s Degree is required, though advanced degrees are preferred in an appropriate scientific discipline and professional background in any of the following pest management fields; entomology, plant pathology, weed science, nematology, or vertebrate pest management.
• Experience leading or managing a program, obtaining and managing competitive grants; the ability to build new collaborative efforts among diverse stakeholders; staff supervision, and excellent interpersonal, organizational and communication skills are required. 

Preferred Qualifications:

• Knowledge of the diverse agriculture in the Western U.S.; experience with federal grant sources. 

WIPMC is one fourth of the regional IPM centers focused on providing coordination of IPM programming. The remaining three regional centers are the Southern IPM Center (SIPMC), the Northeastern IPM Center (NEIPMC) and the North Central IPM Center (NCIPMC). 13 states and four Pacific Island territories are part of WIPMC.

For more information about the position or how to apply, please visit here or email Deziree Sutliff and refer to position #15-32.