A big congratulations to Zoe Narvaez and Grayson Tung for both receiving an NSF-Graduate Research Fellowship! This is a wonderful accomplishment and to show the significance of this, Chloe Hawkings gave the following statistics: "From more than 15,000 applications, only 2,000 are selected for the NSF-GRFP. Of those 2,000, 11 were awarded to Rutgers University students. Of those Rutgers students, 3 were in the life sciences field. Two were from entomology (the smallest department) and both within CVB! Wow!
It was a great week in the student paper competition at this week Entomological Society of America’s annual meeting. Congratulations to all the students that presented. Of note, graduate student Zoe Narvaez placed second in the Grad MUVE: Urban, Structural, and Stored Product Pests section for her talk “Comparative survey of Ixodes scapularis and tick-borne disease risk in two Lyme disease-endemic regions of New Jersey” and undergraduate entomology major Alexandra Mazza also placed second for her talk “Miscellaneous transcriptome analysis to identify caste-specific differential expression in the termite, Zootermopsis nevadensis”in theUndergrad MUVE and PBT section.
Congratulations to Dr. Changlu Wang who received an award from the urban pest management fraternity Pi Chi Omega for his book “Biology and Management of the German Cockroach” at this year’s National Pest Management Association annual meeting. The fraternity presents this award to members who have authored (or co-authored) significant publications.
Join us for the Virtual Prospective Student Event October 25-26, 2022 and meet faculty, current and future students!
Big Congratulations to Chloe Hawkings for being awarded the Barbara Munson Goff Teacher of the Year for 2021! This award was presented to Dr. Hawkings at the SEBS Celebration of 2020 and 2021 graduates that was held Sunday, October 24, 2021.
Congratulations to Michael Monzon for winning the master's student competition at the 2021 North American Forensic Entomology Association's annual meeting for his talk on entitled "High Temperature Thermal Biology of Two Forensically Important Flies in New Jersey."
The Rutgers University Graduate Entomology Student Association (GESA) recently completed construction with a local non-profit on a pollinator and vegetable garden at Imani Park in Edison, NJ and has the potential in the future to expand the project to a second Edison NJ site. See https://sites.rutgers.edu/gesa/imani-gardens-project/ for more information.
Congratulations to Dr. Rick Cooper, former graduate student and current research associate in the department on the publication of the 2nd edition of his book entitled “Bed Bug Handbook: The Complete Guide to Bed Bugs and Their Control”. For more information follow this link: https://techletter.com/bedbugalert.html.
Congratulations to master's student Michael Monzon for receiving a grant from the American Arachnological Society. The grant provides funds to study the predation strategies of two spider species under total dark conditions.
New book out! The Biology and Management of the German Cockroach, by Changlu Wang, Chow-Yang Lee and Michael Rust (eds). Good job! See the review.
Congratulations to Laura Rademacher and Tim Lampasona for winning 2nd place in their respective student paper competition sessions at this week’s Eastern Branch of the Entomological Society of America’s Annual Meeting and to our undergraduate Entomology Games team who took first place in the games Tuesday night. Laura’s talk was on a gene expression analysis to identify molecular markers for development in the Australian sheep blowfly, Lucilia cuprina. Tim’s talk was on the alternate host effects and oviposition preference of plum curculio, Conotrachelus nenuphar.
Congratulations to Dana Price for receiving two grants: Functional genomics to mitigate the threat of the invasive Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis" to the USDA-NIFA AFRI Diseases of Agricultural Animals program ($500,000), and "Non-invasive approaches to mosquito-borne pathogen surveillance using excreta" to the NIH-NIAID R21 Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program ($354,000). Good job!
Congratulations to Dr. Changlu Wang and his lab for winning the 2020 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award for Healthy and Sustainable Communities. The virtual awards ceremony will be held on Monday, December 14 at 9:30 on the NJDEP’s YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2C01lO4mVInYzqqwevFvSw).
Congratulations to Changlu Wang, Richard Cooper and Robert Corrigan on their $641 K grant from HUD to develop integrated pest management solutions to the house mouse and their ectoparasites! The house mouse is a significant pest that can bring associated ectoparasites in to close contact with humans. This research should "help improve the adoption of more sustainable mouse management techniques, reduce the costs associated with mouse control, and reduce mouse allergen concentrations in underserved communities."
Congratulations to Cesar Rodriguez-Saona and his team for winning a $5.4 million grant to combat the spotted wing drosophila, an invasive fruit crop pest that was first detected in California. This pest can cause all types of destruction to stone and small fruit crops. Thumbs up to Cesar!
Several congratulations to go out: Congratulations to Tim Schwanitz for winning the BioQuip Undergraduate Scholarship at ESA! Tim also won first place in the student colloquium for his presentation on "Transcriptome analysis of Drosophila suzukii winter and summer morphs identifies differences in olfactory related genes." Tim Lampasona won 2nd place in the student colloquium for his presentation on "Utilizing protein immunomarkers to measure in-field dispersal of plum curculio, Conotrachelus nenuphar (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)." Congratulations!
Let's meet virtually for a Student Colloquium 2020! Here is the Schedule. Here's the Webex link. Colloquium starts at 8:30 AM (Webex room opens at 8:15, meeting number 138 671 0245, Meeting password JQd23pDYWK6. Join us to find out what the students are up to with their research.
Congratulations to our recent Ph.D. graduate Denise Gemmellaro. She just accepted a tenure-track faculty position at Kean University. She starts September 1, 2019 and will be responsible for developing a forensic science program at Kean.
Rutgers entomologists impacting the future of our science. Last week the Entomological Society of America (ESA) hosted planning meetings and an Innovation Day for ESA leaders and innovators. During the sessions attendees spent a day brainstorming ideas on ways to improve our science, our professional society, and our meetings (including increasing diversity and access). Rutgers entomology was well represented with three faculty members (Drs. Anne Nielsen, Changlu Wang, and Jessica Ware) and two recent graduates, Drs. Monique Rivera and Ary Faraji. Rutgers was the only University with multiple representatives. Our service and leadership has always been forefront in ESA and it showcased Rutgers commitment to service. Picture 1 left to right is Drs. Wang, Ware, Nielsen, and Rivera. Picture 2 left to right is Drs. Wang, Nielsen, Faraji, Rivera, and Ware.
Congratulations to Drs. Denise Gemmellaro and Nakorn Pradit for successfully defending their dissertations and to Dr. Gemmellaro for receiving this year’s Compton/Markle award for outstanding graduate student.
Congratulations to current entomology senior Melvin Delvillar. Melvin is the 2019 recipient of the department’s John B. Schmitt Award for outstanding undergraduate student.
Congratulations to our former Ph.D. student Lauren Weidner. She just accepted a tenure-track faculty position at Arizona State University and will be heading there at the end of the year to begin the position.
Congratulations to Dr. Anne Nielsen who was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Extension Specialist today. Well deserved!
Join me in congratulating Rob Holdcraft (Rodriguez-Saona Lab, see photo, right) for winning this year’s Asa Fitch Award for being this year’s outstanding masters student, Ciara Mendoza (Ware Lab) for winning the Masters/Undergraduate Oral Presentation Competition, and Meghin Rollins (Nielsen Lab, see photo, left) for winning first place in the Student Poster Competition at the recent annual meeting of the Eastern Branch - Entomological Society of America. Please note the both Ms. Mendoza and Rollins are undergraduate students. Good job to all.
Congratulations to Drs. Hamilton, Nielsen and Rodriguez-Saona on their receipt of the 2017 Educational Institution and Federal Laboratory Partnership award for their with the brown marmorated stink bug as part of the Specialty Crop Research Initiative coordinated agricultural project. This award is given via the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer Mid-Atlantic Region.
Congratulations to Dr. Dina Fonseca's student Rafael Valentin (P-IE) and Dr. Jessica Ware's student Manpreet Kohli (SysBE) for taking 1st and 2nd place, respectively, in their 10 minute student paper competition sessions at the 2017 Entomological Society of America annual meeting in Denver Colorado this week.
Congratulations to Nakorn Pradit (Performance of herbivores on false blossom-infected cranberry) and Cary Michel (Landscape effects on the spatial distribution of spotted wing drosophila in blueberries) for placing 1st and 2nd respectively in the 2017 Entomology Graduate Student Colloquium.
Congratulations to Denise Gemmellaro for successfully passing her certification exams to become a board certified forensic entomologist. She is 1 of only 18 board certified forensic entomologists in the world and the second with a Rutgers background.
Today (30 June) we say goodbye to our departmental administrator, Ms. Nancy Lyon who is retiring from Rutgers University after 18 year of service. Nancy, congratulations on your retirement from everyone. You will be missed.
Congratulations to John Pote for receiving the 2017 Professors C. C. Compton & G. M. Markle Entomological Fund Award.
Congratulations to Denise Gemmellaro for receiving the Dissertation Teaching Award from the Graduate School‐New Brunswick. She will receive her award at the Graduate School awards ceremony on April 26th.
Dr. Fonseca is the PI of a proposal entitled “Predicting the evolution of vector-borne disease dynamics in a changing world” that was top rated in the NSF DEB Ecology of Infectious Diseases panel (five “excellent" and one "very-good") and recommended for funding. Using Next-Generation genomics we will generate one of the first comprehensive datasets detailing the evolutionary potential of the major players in a complex multi-host disease system: avian malaria in endemic Hawaiian birds transmitted by invasive mosquitoes. Our results will help mitigate the anthropogenic impacts associated with invasive species and climate change, and can be translated directly into practical management recommendations. This 4-year, $2,498,876 project is slatted to start on July 2017.
Dr. Fonseca will attend a Strategic meeting of the Worldwide Insecticide resistance Network (WIN) (PDF) that will be held in Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL, from May 4-5, 2017. This meeting is supported by the WHO Research & Training program on Tropical Diseases (TDR) and the Department of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and the US-Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US-CDC).
Changlu Wang was awarded the Excellence in Integrated Pest Management 2017 from the ESA Eastern Branch - Congratulations Changlu! Also, congratulations to Rob Holdcraft for winning second place in the undergraduate/masters student paper competition.
