USDA leader Roger N. Beachy is due on campus next week as the first guest in the 2010-11 Chancellor’s Colloquium Distinguished Speakers Series. His talk is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 12, and people planning to attend are asked to send RSVPs to eventrsvp@ucdavis.edu.

Beachy, director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, plans to address this topic: "Can Support of Science for ‘Agriculture’ Prosper Inside the Beltway?”

The UC Davis Humanities Institute is organizing the series, which includes three programs: Jan. 12, March 30 and May 24.

Each talk is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. in the Vanderhoef Studio Theatre at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. A panel discussion with faculty and policy experts is planned after each talk. Admission is free and open to the public.

The Humanities Institute announced these panelists for the roundtable discussion after Beachy's talk:

• Jonathan London, assistant professor, Department of Human and Community Development, and director of the Center for Regional Change
• Elizabeth Mitcham, Cooperative Extension specialist, Department of Plant Sciences
• Anita Oberbauer, professor and chair, Department of Animal Science
• Pamela Ronald, professor, Department of Plant Pathology

"Dr. Beachy’s campus visit is an important opportunity to highlight the value of interdisciplinary and solutions-oriented research that makes UC Davis a world leader,” London said.

London and a team of faculty members from Native American studies, community development and international agricultural development are researching the impacts of economic development in California’s diverse rural communities.

Beachy is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and has held academic positions at Washington University in St. Louis and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla. He is the founding president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis.

Here is more information on the other speakers in the chancellor's series:

• Wednesday, March 30 — Laura D. Tyson, the S.K. and Angela Chan Professor of Global Management at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, where she served as dean from 1998 to 2001. She was dean of the London Business School from 2002 to 2006. She is a member of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. During the Clinton administration, she served as the president's national economic adviser and as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.

• Tuesday, May 24 — Bruce Alberts, president-elect of the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and editor-in-chief of Science. He is a professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UC San Francisco.