Botanist Daniel Potter is the new professorship of the Department of Plant Sciences , oversee graduate and undergraduate programing , 60 faculty members , several emeriti professors and many greenhouses , labs and educational activity facilities .
Potter , who has been at UC Davis for nearly 28 years , search the diverseness and categorisation of flowering plant life , focusing on horticultural crop plant and their dotty congener , the effects of human on industrial plant evolution and taxonomy of select species native to California . He also studies ethnobotany , which examine the interactions of plants and people , and serves as director of the Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium .
The department offers three undergraduate and two graduate point programs centered on tackling agricultural , bionomic and environmental take . Professors learn and acquit enquiry , and Cooperative Extension specialists do outreach work and Education Department with growers , industriousness and others . It ’s among the largest section in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences .
Diversity of interest , study area and experienceCourses cover a variety of topics , let in biotech , flora breeding , genomics , crop timber , ecological direction , environmental horticulture and international agrarian developing .
That variety is something Potter wants to foster .
" Diversity is really one of the greatest forcefulness of the department , if not the greatest , but it ’s also one of the big challenges , because , how do you keep it all going ? " ceramicist said . " One of my priorities is maintain that variety and doing as much as possible to ensure that all the diverse perspectives and all the diverse interests get address and that people palpate like they ’re induce the care they involve . "
The section ’s classrooms , science lab and adroitness are spread out around campus , which can make it hard for student – alumnus and undergraduate – to connect . ceramist hopes to increase the sense of connectivity and one among students and the department . " We ’re so adult and diverse and circulate out over a lot of buildings , " he say . " That ’s been a piece of a challenge . "
The department has been streamline curriculum to see to it social class do n’t overlap . Potter , who served as the section ’s vice chair of teaching for seven eld , said he would continue that elbow grease , especially as long - time module retire . Increasing lab space is also a priority .
" We want to continue providing really good experiential teaching , " he said .
thrower replaces Distinguished Professor Gail Taylor , who attend to as chair since 2017 . Taylor left UC Davis in the beginning this year to become a James Dean at University College London .
Source : plantsciences.ucdavis.edu
