Ted Boscia joined CALS Alumni Affairs, Development, and Communications Oct. 6 as a staff writer II with responsibility for communicating and marketing the achievements of the college’s faculty, staff, and students to internal and external audiences via print, online, and the news media. Boscia graduated summa cum laude from Waynesburg College and earned an M.A. in Journalism from Stanford University. He has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanford Magazine, NYU Magazine, Westchester Magazine, and Baseball America and most recently worked as a community moderator for Google News.

Robert Haight became director of the Agricultural Outreach and Education Program in the Department of Education, effective June 28. Haight, former department chair of dairy science at Morrisville State College, oversees the Ag Ed Outreach (Teacher Services), FFA support, and Ag in the Classroom programs, which bring agricultural resources and services to students, educators, and others across the state and nation. Haight graduated from CALS in 1984 with a B.S. in Animal Science and is enrolled in the dairy science Ph.D. program at Cornell.

Greg Loeb, an expert in pest management and plant-insect interactions, has been promoted to professor in the Department of Entomology, effective July 1. Loeb’s research program studies the principal factors that influence the population dynamics and community structure of arthropod herbivores in agricultural and natural ecosystems, which has helped growers with the proper and effective use of pesticides. Loeb joined Cornell’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station (NYSAES) in 1995.

Janet McCue, longtime director of Albert R. Mann Library, became Cornell’s associate university librarian for teaching, research, outreach and learning services in October. A new fund to support acquisitions at Mann Library will be established to honor McCue’s contributions to the library.

Wayne F. Wilcox, professor of plant pathology, and Olga Padilla-Zakour, associate professor of food processing, have been appointed chair and associate chair, respectively, of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the NYSAES, effective July 1. Wilcox, whose research and extension program frequently collaborates with the New York grape and wine industries, joined the Cornell faculty in 1984. Padilla-Zakour, director of the Northeast Center for Food Entrepreneurship, earned her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Cornell and became a professor at Geneva in 1999. Her research focuses on creating better processing techniques to increase the quality of plant-based foods.

The Board of Trustees promoted the following CALS faculty at its meeting in October:

• Debbie Cherney, Animal Science, associate professor with indefinite tenure;
• Aija Leiponen, Applied Economics and Management, associate professor with indefinite tenure;
• Angela Searle Douglas, Entomology, professor with indefinite tenure.

The board also name two endowed chairs:

• Thomas Burr, the first Goichman Family Professor of Enology and Viticulture, and;
• Alan Collmer, the first Andrew J. and Grace B. Nichols Professor.