Annapolis, MD; September 2, 2020—The Governing Board of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) has elected 10 new Fellows of the Society for 2020. Election as a Fellow of ESA acknowledges outstanding contributions to entomology in research, teaching, extension and outreach, administration, or the military. See more details on criteria for Fellow selection, as well as a full list of ESA Fellows.
This year's honorees will be recognized during ESA's Virtual Annual Meeting, Entomology 2020, November 11-25.
The entomologists named 2020 Fellows of the Entomological Society of America are:
Dr. Carol M. Anelli, professor in the Department of Entomology and the Honors & Scholars Program at the Ohio State University (OSU), was elected ESA Fellow in 2020. Anelli is known for her leadership in teaching and pedagogy and her contributions to the history of entomology. She has been extensively recognized for her teaching excellence.
Anelli grew up in Waterbury, Connecticut, spending many childhood days in the woods and meadows around her home. The natural environs sparked her interest in insects, as did the caterpillars she found nearby and in her father's garden, which she reared to adulthood in her mother's canning jars. Anelli earned her B.A. degree in biology from Southern Connecticut State University. After four years as a research technician at Yale University Medical School, she entered graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), earning her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees under the patient tutelage of Dr. Stanley Friedman. As a teaching assistant at UIUC, Anelli was frequently named on the List of Teachers Rated Excellent by Their Students. After two postdoctoral positions at USDA–ARS in Beltsville, Maryland, and another at NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, she accepted a position as assistant professor in the Biology Department at the University of Scranton, but soon joined the entomology faculty at Washington State University (WSU), Pullman, where she advanced to full professor. As inaugural chair of WSU President's Teaching Academy, she worked with Academy members, upper administration, and Faculty Senate leadership to elevate the professionalism of teaching and transform WSU's general education program. She presented the 2009 WSU convocation keynote address and was honored with the Faculty Library Excellence Award, the Marian E. Smith Achievement Award for meritorious teaching, and the Sahlin Award for instruction, WSU's highest teaching award. She served as Faculty Fellow in the Office of Assessment of Teaching and Learning, Honors College thesis director, and Honors College associate dean. In 2013, Anelli became professor and associate chair of entomology at OSU and subsequently served as interim chair of the department for more than three years.
Anelli received ESA's Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching in 2009 and, having been nominated by ESA's Early Career Professional Committee, presented the 2017 ESA Founders' Memorial Lecture honoring Anna Botsford Comstock, making ESA history as both parties were female. She has served ESA as a two-term member of the Governing Board, Governing Board Executive Committee member, chair of Section B, program co-chair, and in various committee assignments.
During her career, Anelli has developed and taught numerous courses for undergraduate nonscience and science majors and graduate students. Her courses are often interdisciplinary, drawing on the arts and humanities, and she has co-instructed with colleagues from history, English, music, philosophy, and political science. Currently she teaches general education courses in entomology, scientific literacy, a study abroad course on Darwin and evolution, and a graduate course on the history of biology and contemporary issues in science.
Dr. Carolina Barillas-Mury was born in Guatemala City and obtained her B.S. degree from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala and her M.D. from Universidad Francisco Marroquin. She obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Arizona in 1991 and did her postdoctoral training in Dr. Fotis Kafatos's laboratory at Harvard University and at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Germany. She obtained a faculty position at Colorado State University in 1998 and joined NIH in 1993 as head of the Mosquito Immunity and Vector Competence Section.
Barillas-Mury is interested in understanding the interactions between the mosquito immune system and Plasmodium parasites that are critical for malaria transmission, with the ultimate goal of disrupting the parasite's life cycle and preventing human disease. She received the 2010 Bailey K. Ashford Medal, awarded by the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, for distinguished work in tropical medicine; she also was honored with the 2013 Sanofi/Pasteur Award in Tropical and Neglected Diseases. She was elected as member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014; became Distinguished NIH Investigator in 2016; received a Doctor Honoris Causa from Universidad del Valle de Guatemala in 2016; and was Alumni of the Year of the University of Arizona in 2017, Fellow of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 2017, and Fellow of the Entomological Society of America in 2020.
Dr. David Dame, medical entomologist for the Agricultural Research Service, USDA (1961-1988) and independent consultant (1988-2015), was elected ESA Fellow in 2020. Developing methods and products to replace the harsh first-generation organic pesticides of the 1940s and 1950s, he is internationally acclaimed for pursuing environmentally friendly measures for protection from insect-borne disease.
Dame grew up in Greenfield, Massachusetts, attended Deerfield Academy, and received an A.B. degree in zoology-chemistry at Dartmouth College (1954). From 1954 to 1956 he served as a medic in the U.S. Army at Ft. Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma, and Furth (Nurnberg), Germany. With support from the G.I. Bill and a research fellowship, he earned a Ph.D. in entomology in 1961 at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) under the tutelage of Professor Frank Shaw.
He conducted research and provided leadership for the Mosquito Biology and Control Research Unit, USDA's largest mosquito-oriented research team, based at the Insects Affecting Man and Animals Research Laboratory in Orlando, Florida, and then Gainesville (currently, Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology). He conducted studies for industry that led to EPA registrations of several environmentally friendly, public health insecticides, including three new classes of insecticide. He made significant contributions to insect mass-rearing technology and related quality control assessment, assisted IAEA and WHO in developing control methods for arthropod-borne diseases, and provided training and education nationally and internationally for public health-oriented scientists and operational workers.
Dame pioneered the sterile insect technique (SIT) against tsetse flies in then-Rhodesia in a program that was interrupted by civil disruption and therefore relocated to Tanzania, where he supervised the continuation phase as an ARS program leader. Its successful outcome led to IAEA's use of the facilities and methods to eradicate tsetse flies from Zanzibar, preventing further parasite transmission and leading to the African Union's adoption of the technology.
He supervised the rearing and release aspects of science's first successful mosquito SIT program, eliminating the insecticide-resistant malaria vector, Anopheles albimanus, from a village in El Salvador.
During Dame's tenure as research leader (1977-1988), the unit published more than 300 refereed papers on biology, biological control, and chemical control of mosquitoes. He published over 125 refereed papers, including nine book chapters and the "EPA National Training Manual for Public Health Pesticide Applicators."
He was president of the American Mosquito Control Association (AMCA), the Society for Vector Ecology, and the Florida Mosquito Control Association (FMCA); member of ESA, Florida Entomological Society (FES), Phi Kappa Phi, Sigma Xi, Florida Coordinating Council on Mosquito Control, WHO Expert Panel for Parasitic Diseases, FAO Expert Panel on African Sleeping Sickness, Rockefeller Trypanosomiasis Task Force, Gates Foundation Workforce on Malaria, and the WHO Working Group on Development of Public Health Pesticides.
Selected awards include the AMCA Medal of Honor, ESA Distinction in Science, FES Distinction in Research, and FMCA Distinguished Achievements in Public Health.
He is grateful for the long-term assistance and collaboration of many talented individuals and the support received from his wife, Marie, and sons Douglas and Peter during their residence in Africa and throughout his career.
Dr. Richard L. Hellmich, lead scientist with the USDA–ARS, Corn Insects and Crop Genetics Research Laboratory, and affiliate professor of entomology at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa, was elected Fellow in 2020. He is an internationally recognized leader in the environmental risk assessment of genetically engineered crops and insect resistance management (IRM).
Hellmich was born in Cut Bank, Montana, and raised in Greensburg, Indiana, the oldest of 10 children. He received a B.A. in zoology from DePauw University (1977). An entomology class at DePauw sparked his interest in insects, especially bees. He earned his M.S. (1980) and Ph.D. (1983) from the Ohio State University, both under the direction of Walter Rothenbuhler, studying honey bee behavior and genetics. He then spent eight years studying the reproductive behavior of Africanized bees in Venezuela and Guatemala, while working at the USDA–ARS Honey Bee Laboratory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 1991, he redefined his research at Iowa State University to support his wife's career and then, after three years, started as a research entomologist at his current position. Leaving his bee colleagues was challenging, but he quickly found a welcoming community of corn insect scientists.
Hellmich's research has extended over four decades and has resulted in more than 160 journal articles and book chapters and more than 50 technical articles. He was the first to select for high and low pollen-hoarding honey bees, which has since become a pillar for deciphering honey bee behavior and understanding social evolution. His research with Africanized honey bees was fundamental for helping U.S. queen breeders produce quality honey bee queens in Africanized areas. With his corn insect research, he and a colleague, Gary Munkvold, were the first to show the important benefit of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) corn in lowering mycotoxin contamination due to reduced insect injury. Working with the EPA and the NC205 Regional Research Committee, he had a leading role in developing practical and science-based IRM strategies for Bt corn.
Hellmich also led a consortium of scientists from the U.S. and Canada to address the monarch butterfly and Bt-corn pollen issue. This collaboration resulted in a journal cover and five papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and had a major impact on EPA policy for Bt corn. For this work, he received the USDA Secretary's Honor Award and was the 2002 ARS Midwest Area Scientist of the Year. Recently, his research has focused on habitat restoration for monarch butterflies and bees.
Hellmich has had 45 international and 61 national invitations to speak and has had regular invitations to be on science advisory panels. He also has co-organized 10 international and 27 national symposia or workshops, many of these for ESA.
Hellmich has been married to Christine Cook for 32 years and is proud that his daughter, Allyse, is pursuing a career teaching biology. He and his wife enjoy traveling, wine tastings, growing butterfly and bee gardens, and video chatting with Allyse and their granddaughter, Sophia.
Dr. Philip Koehler, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of Florida, was elected Fellow in 2020. Koehler was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in 1947. He received his B.S. in biology from Catawba College (1969) and his Ph.D. from the Cornell University in 1972. Upon graduating from Cornell, he was commissioned as a Lieutenant, Medical Entomologist, in the U.S. Navy's Medical Service Corps and was stationed at the Navy's Disease Vector Ecology and Control Center in Jacksonville, Florida, from 1972 to 1975.
He was appointed assistant professor and extension entomologist at the University of Florida in 1975 with 100% extension responsibilities for livestock, poultry, 4-H, and urban entomology. He was promoted to full professor in 1989 and was a visiting professor at the USDA's Insects Affecting Man and Animals Laboratory in Gainesville, Florida, from 1982 to 1995. From 1999 to 2020, he was the Margie and Dempsey Sapp Endowed Professor of Structural Pest Control and also the Florida Pest Management Association Endowed Professor of Urban Entomology.
Koehler's extension, research, and teaching interests involve the application of integrated pest management to the urban pest management industry. To this end, he has secured more than $10 million in funding from federal, corporate, and state agencies. His efforts have provided the foundation for establishing an internationally recognized program in urban pest management and environmental improvement in homes and schools. Over the course of his career, Koehler's scholarship has resulted in 181 published peer-reviewed articles, four books, seven book chapters, and over 752 Extension fact sheets and circulars. His work has resulted in 28 published patents, and he is a Fellow in the National Academy of Inventors. He has received four USDA superior and distinguished achievement awards, the University of Florida Distinguished Faculty Award, and University of Florida Graduate Teacher Advisor of the Year Award (two times), and was named to the CALS University of Florida Academy of Teaching Excellence. From the pest management industry, he was named to the Pest Management Hall of Fame and the PCT/Zeneca Leadership Award.
During his 45-year career at the University of Florida, Koehler has worked to promote the profession of urban entomology. His accomplishments include mentoring of 83 graduate students, seven postdocs, and nine international scholars who have gone on to careers in academia, government, and industry. He has participated on EPA advisory panels, international panels, and numerous university committees. He has served ESA by helping name the discipline of "urban entomology" and forming its own section, Fb Urban Entomology, where he served as the first section chair. Section Fb Urban Entomology was then restructured to be in the MUVE section.
Koehler has been married to Adele Koehler for 46 years. They have two children, Dr. Timothy Koehler who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and works for Sandia Labs as a staff mechanical engineer, and Dr. Andrew Koehler, who resides in Alexandria, Virginia, where he works for the Naval Research Laboratory as a staff electrical engineer.
Dr. Catherine Loudon is a faculty member at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She received her undergraduate degree from Brown University (Sc.B. Honors in biophysics) and her Ph.D. from Duke University (zoology; minor in mechanical engineering), funded by an NSF Predoctoral Fellowship. She did postdoctoral research at the University of Minnesota, Cornell University (where she was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship), and University of California, Berkeley. Prior to moving to UCI, Loudon was on the faculty at Ithaca College, an NSF visiting professor at Kansas State University, and a faculty member at the University of Kansas.
Loudon's research is in the interdisciplinary area of physical biology/biomechanics; she is particularly interested in the application of physical principles to insect sensory systems, and biomimetic design. She has evaluated how chemical signal interception rates are affected by antennal morphology, movement, air flow, and microhabitats. Loudon was awarded an NSF CAREER Award for her interdisciplinary research in insect chemical interception. In addition, Loudon has been working with several collaborators on the development of physical pesticides using microfabrication approaches, which has led to two patents. Her research has been featured several times in high-profile outlets. Loudon feels particularly appreciative for the extraordinary, talented, and diverse mentors, collaborators, and students with whom she has had the opportunity to work.
Teaching is another professional area to which Loudon has devoted extensive attention, publishing papers on teaching effectiveness and assessment methods. Loudon has taught many thousands of undergraduate students over the last few decades. Her innovative teaching has been recognized by teaching awards at UCI and by the Pacific Branch of ESA. She provides teaching-related service and leadership to her department, school, campus, and the University of California system through committee work.
Loudon has been involved with ESA since her days as a graduate student. She has served as the elected chair of her section and as an appointed member of the national Program Committee, in addition to organizing symposia and intermittently serving as a judge or moderator at the annual meetings. She served on the editorial board of Environmental Entomology, is currently an associate editor for Frontiers of Invertebrate Physiology, and regularly serves as a reviewer for other journals and funding agencies, particularly the National Science Foundation.
Dr. Corrie Moreau is the Martha N. and John C. Moser Professor of Arthropod Biosystematics and Biodiversity at Cornell University in the Departments of Entomology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Ithaca, New York. She is also the director and curator of the Cornell University Insect Collection with over seven million specimens. Moreau earned her Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Harvard University and was a Miller Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. Before this, she completed her undergraduate and master's degrees at San Francisco State University.
Moreau's research on the evolution and diversification of ants and their symbiotic bacteria couples field-based research with molecular and genomic tools to address the origin of species and how co-evolved systems benefit both partners. Also, she pursues questions on the role of biogeography, trait evolution, and symbiosis in shaping macroevolutionary processes to better understand broad-scale evolutionary patterns of life.
Moreau and colleagues were the first to establish the origin of the ants at 140 million years ago using molecular sequence data, and that the diversification of the ants coincided with the rise of the flowering plants (angiosperms). In addition, she showed that the tropics have been and continue to be important for the evolution of the ants. Moreau and colleagues also demonstrated the importance of gut-associated bacteria in the evolutionary and ecological success of ants, including showing that bacterial gut symbionts are tightly linked with the evolution of herbivory in ants.
In addition to her passion for scientific research, Moreau is engaged with efforts to promote science communication and increase diversity in the sciences.
Moreau was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018, a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences USA in 2016, and a National Geographic Explorer in 2014. She was highlighted as a Woman of Impact by the National Geographic Society in 2018.
Dr. Jay A. Rosenheim, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), was elected as Fellow in 2020. He is internationally known for his research on the ecology of insect parasitoids and predators, insect reproductive behavior, and the application of big data, or "ecoinformatics," methods in agricultural entomology.
Rosenheim was born in 1961 in Yorktown, New York, in the Hudson River Valley, where he developed an interest in biology while exploring the inhabitants of a vernal pool behind his home. His family moved to California in 1973, and he received a B.S. in entomology from UC Davis in 1983 and a Ph.D. in entomology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1987 with Professor Marjorie Hoy. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hawaii, working with Marshall Johnson, Ronald Mau, Stephen Welter, and Bruce Tabashnik, and then a Fulbright junior researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, with David Rosen. Rosenheim returned to UC Davis in 1990 to join the faculty of the Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Rosenheim's work has shown that the structure of insect communities is more complex than the archetypal model of three discrete trophic levels, under which predators eat only herbivores and herbivores eat only plants. Instead, widespread predator-predator interactions (intraguild predation), omnivory, and cannibalism create rich and diverse dynamics that can either enhance or disrupt biological control. Rosenheim has also worked to introduce big data techniques to agricultural entomology. By harnessing the decentralized data gathering efforts of farmers, field scouts, and consultants, large data sets can be created and analyzed to reveal important relationships between pests, natural enemies, and crop performance. Rosenheim's research has also examined how organisms evolve to balance multiple factors that can emerge as limits to reproductive success, and how this shapes insect and plant reproductive traits.
Rosenheim has published more than 160 peer-reviewed publications, received teaching awards from the Associated Students of UC Davis and the UC Davis Academic Senate, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has mentored 34 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who have gone on to careers in the private sector (including starting their own companies), conservation nonprofits, journalism, and academia. With colleagues in his department, he co-founded and co-directs the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology, a long-term mentored research program for undergraduates that has now trained more than 100 undergraduate researchers.
Rosenheim and his wife, Shulamit Glazerman, are the parents of four children: Hillel (currently at SUNY Binghamton), Leah (soon to start at SUNY Binghamton), Eitan, and Meirav. The whole family enjoys ultimate frisbee and exploring the hiking trails and waterways of the Adirondack Mountains, New York.
Dr. James Truman was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1945. He was drawn to biology from his earliest years and became an avid insect collector. He attended the University of Notre Dame, where he worked in the mosquito genetics lab of Professor George Craig Jr. from late in his freshman year through the summer after his graduation in 1967. His first published article was in the Annals of the ESA while he was an undergraduate. He did his graduate studies at Harvard University in insect behavior and endocrinology with Professor Lynn Riddiford and received his Ph.D. in 1970. He continued as a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows until 1973, when he joined the faculty of the Zoology Department of the University of Washington. He was promoted to professor of zoology in 1978 and remained there until retirement in 2007 to become a group leader at the new Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) in Northern Virginia. After nine years in Virginia, he retired from HHMI and returned to the University of Washington, where, as professor of biology emeritus, he is continuing research at university's Friday Harbor Laboratories on San Juan Island in Puget Sound.
Truman's abiding interests have been in understanding how hormones control the development and functioning of the insect nervous system. His thesis work was on the hormonal control of adult eclosion in giant silkmoths and led to the eventual isolation and sequencing of the eclosion hormone—the first member of a peptide network that orchestrates ecdysis behavior. A fascination with the nervous system and metamorphosis led him into studies of the involvement of ecdysone and juvenile hormone in neurogenesis, cell death, and neuronal remodeling. His early work was on Saturniid and Sphingid moths, but later shifted to Drosophila to exploit its molecular genetic tools. These Drosophila studies resulted in new insights of how the developmental organization of the nervous system provides the modules for both its function and evolution. He is now expanding his evolutionary quest through various insect groups and into the Crustacea.
Over the years, Truman was fortunate to attract a group of more than 50 talented graduate and postgraduate students who have been instrumental in these studies. He and Lynn Riddiford were married in 1970, which also provided a mutually stimulating environment as they have directed independent, but overlapping, research programs for over 50 years. He has published over 300 research articles, reviews, and book chapters. He is an honorary member of The Royal Entomological Society, London, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He has received the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Research Prize and the Wigglesworth Award of the Royal Entomological Society.
Besides their enthusiasm for teaching and research, Truman and Riddiford have a strong love for cats and horses. They are avid travelers and have done research on five continents. Their abiding fascination is with Africa, where they have visited over two dozen times and have worked at ICIPE in Kenya.
Dr. Susan J. Weller, director of the University of Nebraska State Museum and professor of entomology at University of Nebraska–Lincoln, was elected as an ESA Fellow in 2020. She is internationally recognized for her research on the evolution of arctiine moths and other Noctuoidea, as well as nationally recognized for her administrative leadership to promote entomology and science education.
Weller was born in Rochester, New York. She grew up in Saratoga Springs, where her early interest in nature was piqued by the large family garden, a nearby stream, and encouragement to be a tomboy as the oldest of four children. She pursued her undergraduate degree at Grinnell College (1984) and Ph.D. at the University of Texas-Austin (1989) with Larry Gilbert and John Rawlins (Carnegie Museum). Weller received curatorial training at The Natural History Museum (London) as a Fulbright-Hayes Fellow and at the National Museum of Natural History through two Smithsonian Fellowships.
Weller's research incorporates a variety of data types and explores the landscape of systematic and comparative analyses. A classically trained lepidopteran morphologist, she cross-trained in molecular systematics with Dorothy Pashley at the Louisiana State University (LSU) and was among the first generation of insect morphologists to embrace routinely incorporating molecular data to understand phylogenetic relationships. The first molecular paper to challenge the status quo of Noctuidae as a natural (monophyletic) group (Weller et al. 1995) was written by her team at LSU. Results were not embraced initially, but now Erebidae is recognized as an independent lineage within the superfamily Noctuiodea. Although her favorite research organisms are lepidopterans, especially arctiines, she has always been interested in "comparative evolutionary questions," including the evolution of insect communication systems, mimicry, insect mouthparts, or even the evolution of rickettsial diseases. Weller seeks to answer the "why" about the diversity and success of insects.
Weller's professional accomplishments in administrative leadership are grounded in her early career focus in mentoring and teaching. Weller was hired at University of Minnesota in 1995. She taught three core courses and contributed to 39 graduate student committees in three colleges (agriculture, biology, and natural resources), and sponsored seven undergraduate honors research theses and 39 undergraduate research projects. Two-thirds of her publications have at least one student or postdoctoral researcher as lead or co-author.
Weller became the first woman director of the Bell Museum of Natural History in 2008, led its merger with the Minneapolis Planetarium in 2010, and assisted with securing state bonding for the new public museum in 2014. Weller was hired to lead the University of Nebraska State Museum in 2015, where she oversaw the major renovation Cherish Nebraska. Entomological stories are infused throughout the new galleries focused on Nebraska's natural history. Weller's record of service to ESA is extensive, including service as ESA president in 2017. To relax, she and her husband enjoy catching up with family, fishing in northern Minnesota, walking their hunting dogs, and other outdoor activities.
CONTACT: Joe Rominiecki, jrominiecki@entsoc.org, 301-731-4535 x3009
ABOUT: ESA 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 7,000 members affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. Headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, the Society stands ready as a non-partisan scientific and educational resource for all insect-related topics. For more information, visit www.entsoc.org.