Lanham, MD; August 1, 2012 -- The ESA Governing Board has elected ten new Fellows of the Society for 2012. The election as a Fellow acknowledges outstanding contributions to entomology in one or more of the following: research, teaching, extension, or administration. The following Fellows will be recognized during Entomology 2012 -- ESA's 60th Annual Meeting -- which will be held November 11-14, 2012 in Knoxville, Tennessee:
Dr. Christian W. Borgemeister is the third director general of the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE), a pan-African research and development center headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. He is internationally recognized for his research on biological control and integrated pest management (IPM) in the tropics. Borgemeister was born in Wuppertal, Germany in 1959 and received a diploma in agricultural engineering from Georg-August-University Göttingen in 1985, and a PhD in applied entomology from Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) in 1991. From 1992-1997 he worked as a postdoc, associate, and senior scientist in the Biological Control Program for Africa of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Benin. He continued his work on IPM and biocontrol, shifting his focus to the invasive larger grain borer (Prostephanus truncatus), a devastating pest of stored maize and cassava that was accidentally introduced from Mexico and Central America into East and West Africa in the late 1970s and early 1980s, respectively. In 1998 he returned to Germany, working first as assistant and later associate professor at LUH and Justus-Liebig University Giessen. He continued his research focus on pest control in the tropics, with major projects in sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and southeast Asia. In addition to biocontrol, Borgemeister and his group started to venture into entomopathology, mainly through work on entomopathogenic nematodes and fungi for control of thrips, white flies, and other important pests. Under his leadership at ICIPE, the organization has grown considerably, both in terms of funding and scientific achievements. Borgemeister has been an invited speaker at many universities around the world, and at various scientific events like the Society for Vector Control meeting in Belek, Turkey in 2009 and the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa in 2010. In 2010 he gave the Sawicki Lecture at Rothamsted Research (UK), and in 2011 he received the International Plant Protection Award of Distinction for “Contributions toward the Development of Plant Protection Strategies and the Global Promotion of Food Security.” Borgemeister is a fellow of the Royal Entomological Society and the African Academy of Sciences. He is also the 2012 President of the ESA International Branch. He has published more than 110 peer-reviewed papers, is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Tropical Insect Science, and is member of the editorial board of the Bulletin of Entomological Research.
Dr. Henry H. Hagedorn is a professor emeritus at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He is internationally recognized for his research on the physiology of reproduction in mosquitoes, and as founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Insect Science. Hagedorn was born in Milwaukee, WI on April 4, 1940. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, receiving a BS degree in 1965 and an MS degree in 1966, and received a PhD in 1970 at the University of California, Davis. In 1972 he was an FGP Trainee in Woods Hole with Dr. W.H. Telfer. He accepted a position as assistant professor of entomology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst in 1973, moved to Cornell University in 1987 and then to the University of Arizona in 1988. In 1981 Hagedorn was awarded a Von Humboldt Senior Science Fellowship in Tübingin, Germany, and became a fellow of the AAAS in 1988. He retired in 2005 and moved back to Wisconsin, where he is a member of the Department of Entomology at UW-Madison. Research in Hagedorn’s laboratory focused on egg development in the mosquito Aedes aegypti. His team worked most intensively on the hormonal control of egg development that led to the discovery that 20-hydroxyecdysone regulated the expression of the vitellogenin (yolk protein) genes, and the fact that the ovary was the source of ecdysone. They also examined the roles of juvenile hormone in egg development. This work led to a model for understanding the multiple roles of these hormones in the life of the adult female mosquito. At the University of Arizona in Tucson, Hagedorn was the director of the Center of Insect Science for five years. He led a group of students and teachers that produced materials for primary school teachers (Using Live Insects in Elementary Classrooms for Early Lessons in Life). Working with Emory and Marlene Sekaquaptewa, Hagedorn also produced a video, Hopi Corn: The Mother of Life. In 2001 Hagedorn started the Journal of Insect Science, an open-access, online journal to provide an alternative to commercial journals. JIS has become an international journal that covers all aspects of the biology of insects and other arthropods, and their agricultural and medical impacts. There are about 50 editors associated with JIS, which is now associated with the Department of Entomology at the UW-Madison.
Dr. Joseph Morse received a BS in electrical engineering at Cornell University and an MS in both entomology and systems science and a PhD in entomology at Michigan State University. Since 1981 he has worked on citrus and avocado pest management at the University of California, Riverside, focusing on integrating biological control and selective chemical controls, addressing recently invasive species, and dealing with arthropod contaminants on both import and export fruit. He has published a total of 322 papers or book chapters, including more than 145 peer reviewed articles. Previous awards include the ESA Recognition Award in Entomology (1993), the Citrus Research Board Award of Excellence (2005), the Art Schroeder Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions to Avocado Research (2006), Fellow of AAAS (2006), the Award of Honor from the California Avocado Society (2010), and the Entomological Foundation Award for Excellence in Integrated Pest Management (2011). Dr. Morse has held several administrative positions at the University of California. From 1988-1993, he was the associate director of the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program, charged with oversight for the $0.75 million/year statewide competitive grants program. In 1994, when the Mediterranean fruit fly outbreak and aerial malathion sprays in nearby Corona raised public ire, he worked with local and system-wide administration to help found the UC Riverside Center for Invasive Species Research (CISR) and served as associate director (1994-1996) and director (1996-1999) of the Center. CISR, along with UC-IPM, oversaw the Exotic Pest and Disease Research Program, which awarded a total of $10.3 in funding (via a grant from USDA-CSREES) for 103 multi-year research projects dealing with invasive species affecting agricultural systems, natural systems, and urban systems in California. When the UC Division of Agricultural and Natural Resources reorganized in 1999, Morse was asked to serve for six years (1999-2005) as one of four new 75%-time statewide program leaders charged with oversight of system-wide activities in the area of pest management and agricultural policy. As a professor at UC Riverside, Dr. Morse teaches the evolution portion (50%) of Biology 5C: Introductory Evolution and Ecology, typically taken by 225-550 undergraduates in their sophomore year, and Entomology 10: Natural History of Insects, a science exposure course taken by 200-300 students in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Dr. Robert Page, a professor at Arizona State University, studies the evolution of complex social behavior in honey bees, from genes to societies. He was born in Bakersfield, CA in 1949. He received his BS in entomology from San Jose State University in 1976 and entered a graduate program at the University of California, Davis, where he received his PhD in entomology in 1981. He did postdoctoral training at the USDA Honey Bee Research Laboratory in Madison, WI, and was then appointed assistant professor of entomology at The Ohio State University in 1986. In 1989 he returned to UC Davis as an associate professor and was promoted to full professor in 1991. He served as chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology 1999-2004. In 2004, he moved to Arizona State University to be the founding director of the new School of Life Sciences. He took this opportunity to build a Social Insect Research Group that is now recognized worldwide. In July 2011 he became vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, where he still serves. Dr. Page was trained as an entomologist, evolutionary population geneticist, classical animal breeder, and mechanistic behaviorist. This training has defined his research approach of looking at the genetics and evolution of complex social behavior. He has taken a vertical approach to understanding the mechanisms of honey bee social foraging and how it evolves. His work is contained in more than 225 research articles. He has also co-edited three books and authored or co-authored two. Dr. Page is an ISI highly-cited author in plant and animal science. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the German National Academy of Science, and the Brazilian Academy of Science. In 1995 he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize by the government of Germany.
Dr. Kenneth Raffa, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, is internationally recognized for his research on processes affecting population dynamics of forest insects, especially tree defense, tritrophic signaling, and symbioses. Ken was born in Irvington, NJ in 1950 and grew up near Wilmington, DE. He received his BS from St. Joseph’s College in Philadelphia in 1972, his MS from the University of Delaware in 1976, and his PhD from Washington State University in 1980. He assisted with insect and disease surveys for the US Forest Service in Asheville, NC in 1973 and 1974, and was a research biologist with DuPont from 1981-1985, where he investigated antifeedants, elicitors of plant defense, and insecticide resistance management. He joined the faculty at UW in 1985, and was named Beers-Bascom Professor of Conservation in 2010. Dr. Raffa’s program emphasizes cross-scale interactions and feedbacks in ecological systems, and applying this information to improve natural resource management. His work on a variety of bark beetles, defoliators, and root insects has contributed to our understanding of the bioactivity and ecological significance of inducible tree defenses, plasticity in host selection by herbivores, chemical signaling among herbivores and natural enemies, and microbial mediation of plant-insect interactions. Raffa has published over 275 refereed papers and reviews, and has received recognitions such as ESA’s Founders’ Memorial Award, the International Society of Chemical Ecology Silverstein-Simeone Lecture Award, and the Spitze Land Grant Faculty Award. Raffa teaches courses in Insects and Disease in Forest Resource Management, Plant-Insect Interactions, and Scientific Presentation. He has likewise engaged in extensive outreach, discussing forestry issues through a variety of media, constituent, and agency outlets, and insect biology in elementary schools. He has mentored 30 graduate programs and 14 postdoctoral associates, and engaged over 200 undergraduates in independent research projects and other hands-on experiences. His students have earned numerous honors for their contributions, including two ESA Comstock awards. Raffa has served as a subject editor for Ecology and Forest Science, organized the Symbiosis subsection of Environmental Entomology, and served on two CSRS panels, APHIS’s study committee on tree genetic engineering, the NRC’s study on the future of pesticides, and two USDA and six NSF grant panels. He has served on UW’s Faculty Senate, numerous campus and departmental committees, and the Madison Parks Commission. He also serves on several state committees dealing with natural resources, such as Wisconsin’s Council on Invasive Species.
Dr. Hugh M. Robertson, a professor of entomology and of cell and developmental biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), is internationally recognized for his research on transposons, chemoreception, and genomes of insects. Robertson was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1955 and grew up in East London, where he attended Selbourne College. After a year at the University of Cape Town in 1974, he moved to the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where he earned his BSc in zoology and biochemistry in 1976, and his PhD in zoology with Hugh E. H. Paterson in 1982. He moved to the USA for a Guyer postdoctoral fellowship in the Zoology Department at the University of Wisconsin at Madison with Jack P. Hailman, followed by a second postdoctoral in genetics with William R. Engels. In 1987 he was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at UIUC, and promoted to associate and full professor in 1993 and 1999. Robertson's research began with studies of the mating behavior of damselflies and Drosophila flies, followed by two decades of studies of transposons in insect genomes, starting with postdoctoral work on P elements in Drosophila and ending with studies of horizontal transfer of transposons between animal genomes. Around the turn of the century he redirected his primary research focus and the efforts of his laboratory to the molecular basis of olfaction and gustation in insects, starting with odorant binding proteins and moving on to odorant and gustatory receptors. He also broadened his research to other aspects of insect molecular biology, primarily gleaned from new public insect genome projects, such as circadian rhythms, methylation, and telomeres. He was involved in most public insect and other arthropod genome projects beyond Drosophila, playing a central role in the honey bee genome project. His small laboratory is currently involved in sequencing several insect genomes in collaboration with others. He is an author on 108 research papers and 18 other publications. Robertson has been an invited speaker at meetings around the world, most recently at the Sixth International Symposium on Molecular Insect Science in Amsterdam, and the XXIV International Congress of Entomology in Daegu, South Korea, where he will receive a Certificate of Distinction. His other honors include being named a University and a Romano Professorial Scholar at UIUC, and he is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served as an associate editor of Insect Molecular Biology for eight years. He has advised many undergraduates, ten MS, and eight PhD students, and three postdoctoral fellows, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in biology. Robertson is married to an artist, Christina J. Nordholm, and has a stepson, Gabriel, and a daughter, Erica. His major hobby is sailing, including windsurfing and kiteboarding.
Dr. R. Michael Roe is a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor in the Department of Entomology and the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. He is internationally recognized for his research in insect and acarine physiology, biochemistry, genomics and toxicology, and the use of fundamental research in chemistry, nuclear science, and biology to solve practical problems and develop new commercial technologies. He was born in Plaquemine, LA in 1952 and obtained his BS degree from Louisiana State University (LSU) in 1974, his MS degree in physiology with a minor in biochemistry in 1976, and his PhD in entomology and a minor in nuclear science in 1981. He was an NIH fellow in cellular and molecular biology in the Department of Entomology at the University of California, Davis from 1981-1984, and in 1984 he accepted a position as assistant professor in entomology at NCSU. Roe’s laboratory focuses on understanding how insect and acarine systems function at the molecular level, the use of synthetic organic chemistry to understand structure-activity, and applications in bioassay, chemistry, molecular biology, and physics to solve practical pest problems in the context of integrated pest management. His lab is especially active in technology transfer and product development. Some of his greatest successes include a US EPA registered insect and tick repellent more effective than DEET and a fast-acting, natural, broad-spectrum herbicide, among many others. He is a prolific author with more than 250 published papers, 7 books, 36 patents and 10 licensed technologies. Roe has been an invited speaker for more than 40 scientific events throughout the world and was the organizer of several national and international scientific meetings. He is the president of InTox Biotech in Middlesex, NC and has served or is serving on the advisory boards for several companies and non-profit organizations in the US. Roe is also a founding member of the interdepartmental biotechnology program at NCSU and has developed new courses in physiology, insect morphology, molecular entomology, toxicology, and professional development. Roe has received several awards for his accomplishments. However, he considers his greatest professional successes and greatest joy in the more than 46 graduate students that he has trained. He has also trained over 20 postdoctoral researchers. His graduates and postdocs have gone on to successful careers in academia, industry, and government in the US and throughout most of the world.
Dr. Thomas C. Sparks, a Dow Research Fellow at Dow AgroSciences in Indianapolis, IN, is internationally recognized for his research in insect toxicology and biochemistry, and insecticide discovery, especially as it relates to the spinosyn class of insecticidal chemistry. He was born in 1951 in San Francisco, CA and grew up in California’s Central Valley. He obtained a BA in biology with a minor in chemistry from Fresno State University in 1973, and a PhD in entomology from the University of California, Riverside in 1978. His research focused on insect endocrinology, biochemistry, and toxicology. In 1978, he joined the the Department of Entomology at Louisiana State University, where his research covered endocrine regulation of insect metamorphosis, insecticide resistance, and insecticide biochemistry and toxicology. Dr. Sparks also taught introductory and advanced courses in insecticide toxicology. In 1989 he joined the agrochemical research group at Elanco, at the time of the joint venture between Eli Lilly and the Dow Chemical Company to form DowElanco (now Dow AgroSciences). Dr. Sparks became leader of a research group, shortly after joining Dow AgroSciences, that coordinated aspects of spinosad’s development, along with the exploration of the spinosyn chemistry for the next generation product. Concerned that available approaches were not leading to spinosyn chemistry nearly as active as the naturally occurring spinosyns, Dr. Sparks investigated and then applied the radical approach of using artificial neural networks for the analysis of the quantitative structure activity relationships for the spinosyn chemistry. The resulting analysis pointed to new directions for the spinosyn chemistry that directly led to the discovery of new, more highly effective analogs that in turn led to the next generation spinosyn product, spinetoram. Spinetoram improved on spinosad by providing an expanded spectrum, improved efficacy, and residual activity, while maintaining the excellent toxicological and environmental profile established by spinosad. In addition to his work on the spinosyns, Dr. Sparks has also led a variety of discovery efforts resulting in the identification of numerous other insecticidal chemistries. He recently led a successful effort to characterize the biochemical basis for lack of resistance to sulfoxaflor, a new sulfoximine insecticide for the control of sap-feeding insect pests. An EPA approval decision is expected in 2012. Dr. Sparks has been the chair of the Insecticide Resistance Action Committee’s (IRAC) Mode of Action Working Group, and a member of the editorial board for Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology. In 2010 he was an organizing member and a symposium chair for the IUPAC International Congress on Pesticide Chemistry in Melbourne, Australia, and in 2012 hosted the annual meeting of IRAC International in Indianapolis, IN. The novelty and attributes of spinetoram were recognized in 2007 with an EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, and Dr. Sparks’ efforts were recognized in 2009 with R&D Magazine naming him the 2009 Scientist of the Year, the first in the 50-year history of the award for a scientist working in agriculture. In 2012 Dr. Sparks’ research was also recognized by the American Chemical Society, Agrochemical Division by presenting him with the ACS International Award for Research in Agrochemicals. Dr. Sparks currently holds a dozen patents/patent applications and has published extensively in scientific journals and books with 150 refereed journal publications, book chapters, and other articles.
Dr. Michael R. Strand, a distinguished professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Georgia, is internationally recognized for his research on parasite-insect host interactions. Strand was born in Norfolk, VA but spent most of his childhood in Texas. He attended Texas A&M University, receiving his BS in 1980 and PhD in 1985. After a short postdoctoral appointment at Imperial College (UK), funded by a National Science Foundation-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) fellowship, he accepted a position as an assistant professor at Clemson University. He moved in 1987 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he advanced to the position of professor. In 2002, he moved to the University of Georgia, where he holds appointments in the Department of Entomology, the Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, Faculty of Infectious Diseases, and the Department of Genetics. Strand’s primary research interests are in the study of the interactions between insects, parasites, and beneficial symbionts. Projects include the characterization of polydnaviruses and other symbionts associated with parasitic wasps, insect immune defense responses, and the interplay between immunity and reproduction. His laboratory is strongly interdisciplinary, with projects that focus on both the molecular and biochemical regulation of physiological processes as well as their effects on insect life history and evolution. He has authored or co-authored more than 190 scientific papers, reviews, and book chapters. His work has also been supported by a diversity of scientific research agencies including the NIH, the NSF, and the USDA. In addition to his research interests, Strand’s service contributions include appointments on several journal editorial boards, grant evaluation panels, and committees for national and international scientific agencies. Strand has advised more than 60 graduate students and postdoctoral scientists, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in academia, industry, and government. He is also active in classroom teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Strand has served the ESA in several capacities, and is the 2012 President-elect for the Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology Section. He has been an invited speaker in countries around the world and at various scientific events. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received several awards for his work, including the 2009 ESA Recognition Award in Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology.
Dr. Walter R. Tschinkel is R.O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Biological Science at Florida State University in Tallahassee, and is internationally recognized for his research on the social biology and ecology of ants. He was born in what is currently the Czech Republic in 1940, and his family emigrated to the USA in 1946. He received his BS in biology from Wesleyan University in 1962, and his PhD in comparative biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968. After a postdoc at Cornell and Rhodes University in South Africa, he accepted a position in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University in 1970, attaining the rank of full professor in 1980. Tschinkel's research has emphasized experimentation, several times in the field on a grand scale, and often uses clever improvised equipment. Beginning with chemical communication in beetles and ants, he gradually broadened to the general theme of how ant colonies are organized to function as superorganisms, how these superorganisms develop, and how they interact with each other on an ecological scale, publishing more than 130 papers in diverse journals. Much of this research was carried out on the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, and delved into colony founding, colony development, colony function, territoriality, ecology and population biology. Based on this body of work and the literature, Tschinkel wrote the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book The Fire Ants (Harvard Univ. Press), which provides a critical summary of fire ant biology. Having developed the sociometric/sociogenic method for the efficient description of the seasonal and life history of ant species, Tschinkel has produced a steady stream of life histories of Florida ants. More recently, he developed methods for making casts of subterranean ant nests, and is currently studying how ants produce these nests. Another current area of study addresses how ant communities are assembled through habitat choices made by dispersing, newly-mated queens. He has mentored many students and postdocs, a number of whom have gone on to productive careers in academia, government, and the private sector. Tschinkel is known for being a challenging teacher with exceptionally wide knowledge. He has written on educational performance in public schools and the university. His metal casts of ant nests are on display in many museums in the USA, Canada, France, and Hong Kong. Tschinkel has been a member of the ESA since 1971, and a member of the North American section of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects since the early 1980s. He served as president of the IUSSI World Congress in 2006. His botanical drawings have delighted many, and he is a fervent outdoorsman, undoubtedly one reason for his passion for field experiments and natural history.
The Entomological Society of America is the largest organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. Founded in 1889, ESA today has more than 6,000 members affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government.
Entomology 2012 -- ESA's 60th Annual Meeting -- will be attended by nearly 3,000 insect scientists and will feature over 100 symposia, 2,500 total presentations, and a number of meetings and social events.
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