The campus's John Muir Institute of the Environment has a new director -- Dennis Rolston, a distinguished environmental scientist and the leader of a faculty initiative to establish a UC Davis Graduate School of the Environment.

Rolston fills the vacancy created by previous director Robert Flocchini's recent decision to concentrate on leading the campus's Crocker Nuclear Laboratory and other projects.

A specialist in contaminant transport processes in soils, Dennis Rolston has been on the UC Davis faculty for 32 years and is a professor in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

"The campus is taking the important step of integrating planning efforts for the proposed new school with the strong foundation for multidisciplinary environmental research provided by the John Muir Institute," said Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw.

"Our goal in taking these actions is to bring UC Davis the recognition it deserves as the flagship environmental campus in the UC system and a leader nationally and internationally for environmental research and teaching."

The 4-year-old institute was designated to serve as an incubator for interdisciplinary environmental research projects and to secure grants. The institute also is intended to coordinate specific centers of organized environmental research and to facilitate communication between policy-makers, resource agencies, academic scientists and the public through effective outreach programs. It was named after the Scots-born American naturalist.