It's Official.

Professor Joanna Chiu now is the director of the PREP site at UC Davis, with Dan Starr assisting as Co-Director.

Dan remarked, "I am delighted to pass the baton for PREP@UCDavis to Joanna. I couldn’t imagine a better person to be the next director. She'll serve future PREP scholars incredibly well."

Joanna Chiu and her lab study circadian and seasonal rhythms, posttranslational regulation of proteins, and the molecular genetics of animal behavior. Members of the ClockLab also use biotechnology and insect genomics to enhance global food security.

Joanna was named a UC Davis Chancellor's Fellow in 2018. She currently serves as Vice Chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and chairs the selection committee for the Tracy and Ruth Storer Lectureship in the Life Sciences, the most prestigious of the endowed seminars at UC Davis. 

She also knows grad school admissions from the inside out. She's led admissions committees for the Integrative Genetics and Genomics Graduate Group, and for Biochemistry, Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology. She's also a member of the Grad Groups in Neuroscience, Animal Behavior, and Entomology. And she contributes to all of these graduate programs in a substantive way, resulting the 2022 UC Davis Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award for Graduate and Professional Teaching.

And last but certainly not least, she mentored Maribel Anguiano as a PREP@UCD scholar and the undergrad instar stages of 2022-2023 PREP@UCD scholar Kiya Jackson.

We thank Dan Starr for having the vision to initiate PREP at our campus, shepherding PREP@UCD through its formative years (including racial and epidemiological pandemics), taking us to ABRCMS through flurries of snow (Indianapolis, 2018) and mouse-ear hats (Anaheim, 2019 and 2022), browbeating an increasing number of researchers into using Mike Morrison's Better Poster format, creating a course -- MCB 112 -- so that PREP scholars and talented undergrads get credit for their work on the GRFP and grad school application process, and pledge to support PREP scholars throughout their studies.

I ...decided to dedicate substantial effort in the second half of my career to help provide some small amount of privilege to young scientists who often lack the background and support to attend graduate school. -- Dan Starr, June 2020

Once in PREP, always in PREP!