Steve Ayala

Employment

Carpentry

I helped my father build our home in Floriston between 1947-57, adding new rooms as needed. Floriston is in the Sierra's Truckee River Canyon – I grew to love rockwork landscaping.

In Ecuador, I designed and oversaw the biology teaching and lab facilities for the Facultad de Ciencias, at Quito's Catholic University.

The photo above shows our current home in Petaluma. Over the course of a year, 32 families spent at least 30 hours every week, helping to build each others' homes - part of a Burbank Housing "self-help" program. I also worked at Bruce Ayala Builders, my brother's construction business.

For nearly 20 years, I was a carpenter with D & R Construction, until January 2009 when the economic downturn caught up with us and most of our work disappeared.   We remodeled existing dwellings, built custom homes, and occasionally rebuilt historical structures.

It used to be a tradition when homes were built to place time-capsule-like items behind the door trim in the kitchen. Imagine yourself taking apart a 100-year old kitchen and finding turn-of-the-century family photos, grocery store bills, homework lessons.

check out the constuction page!

Teaching

I enjoy teaching, and minored in education during my undergraduate studies.

Teaching assistant - St Mary's College of California (biology), Univ California, Berkeley (medical entomology).

Teaching: Univ Católica, Quito Ecuador (zoology), Univ del Valle, Cali Colombia (chairman, medical parasitology), Tulane Univ School of Public Health, New Orleans (malariology), LSU Medical School, New Orleans (medical parasitology).

 

Research

Theses: Wild hosts of Chagas' disease in the US (MSPH) - Univ N Carolina, Chapel Hill. Protozoan infections carried by California sandflies (PhD) - Univerity of Califonia, School of Agriculture, Berkeley.

Colombia - parasitic diseases of man and wildlife, malaria in lizards...with Colombian biologists & U S Peace Corps volunteers - Manuscript Guide to the Lizards of Colombia.

Most memorable highlights - working together on research with fellow biologists from a wide range of specialties from Colombia and several other countries.

sandflies & lizard malaria             publications

Other Work

Paper boy - The Sacramento Bee - Floriston;   Page layout & Printer - Nevada County Nugget, Nevada City;   Seasonal firefighter - U S Forest Service, Tahoe National Forest;   Community Service volunteer - Amigos Anonymous, Morelia, Mexico;   Peace Corps volunteer - Quito, Ecuador;   Tour-shuttle bus operator - U S Park Service, Pt Reyes National Seashore; Carpenter - Ayala Builders, D & R Construction - Petaluma.