Annapolis, MD; August 26, 2019—The Governing Board of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) has elected 10 new Fellows of the Society for 2019. 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.
The following Fellows will be recognized at Entomology 2019, November 17-20, in St. Louis, Missouri.
Dr. David Andow, a Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Entomology, University of Minnesota, was elected as Fellow in 2019. He is internationally known for his research on insect population and community ecology, risk assessment of invasive species and genetic engineering, and management of resistance in insects.
Professor Andow was born in Ohio and attended Brown University, majoring in biology (Sc.B., magna cum laude). He obtained his Ph.D. in ecology and evolution at Cornell University (1982) under the direction of David Pimentel and Simon Levin, investigating the ecological mechanisms affecting insect response to vegetational diversity. He then received a National Science Foundation postdoc to study rice insects with Keizi Kiritani at the National Institute of Agro-Environmental Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan. Following this, he had a short postdoc at Cornell reviewing the environmental risks of genetic engineering. He took his present position in 1984 and serves on the graduate faculties of entomology, ecology, conservation biology, sustainable agriculture, and natural resource policy and management.
Andow's research in insect ecology is diverse. His 1991 review on arthropod response to vegetational diversity has received over 1,600 citations and remains actively cited today. His work to extend the diffusion model for the spread of invasive species opened up basic and applied research to model and manage invasive species. His modelling work and reviews have influenced efforts to design and implement effective insect resistance management, and the F2 screen, which estimates resistance allele frequencies for recessive and nearly recessive resistance in natural populations, has been used worldwide. His publications in sustainable agriculture have supported the view that SA systems are highly integrated and insects play critically important roles. He led the early efforts to develop and implement the recovery of the federally endangered Karner blue butterfly, and he has published extensively on environmental risks of genetically engineered organisms and the ecology of natural enemies, especially coccinellids and Trichogramma wasps. More recently, he has worked on the landscape ecology of pentatomids as well as on the use of next-generation sequencing to understand food web structure.
Andow has published more than 193 peer-reviewed scientific papers and 92 book chapters, edited 13 books, co-authored seven consensus reports for national and international organizations, and given 242 invited presentations. He has graduated seven M.Sc. and 10 Ph.D. students and mentored nine postdoctoral/visiting scientists. He was the King/Chavez/Parks Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, and he won the Best Publication in Landscape Ecology from the International Association for Landscape Ecology. He was an OECD Fellow, a McMaster Fellow, a Japanese Society for the Advancement of Science Fellow, and a Bellagio Center Fellow. He has consulted for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (Vatican), World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, European Food Safety Authority, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (Japan), U.S. National Academy of Sciences, USDA, and US-EPA.
His son Lucas is a double major in comparative literature and Portuguese at the University of Minnesota, and his wife Debora is a research scientist in molecular entomology at the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation.
Dr. Gerhard Gries, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Simon Fraser University (SFU), Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, was elected Fellow in 2019. His laboratory is internationally known for the study of multimodal insect communication signals and foraging cues, and for the development of semiochemicals for monitoring and control of pest insects.
Gries was born in Duderstadt, Germany, in 1955. He obtained his high school degree from the Duderstadt Gymnasium in 1974. After 15 months of military service, he studied forstwissenschaften (forest sciences) at the Georg-August-Universität in Göttingen in Germany. In 1984, he received his Ph.D. in forest entomology. Supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, he joined Dr. John Borden's laboratory at SFU in 1986. After a two-year limited-term appointment, he became a tenure-track faculty member in 1991, reaching the rank of full professor in 2000. He is currently in the 16th year of an industrial research chair on multimodal animal communication ecology, supported by BASF, Scotts Miracle-GRO, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
The Gerhard and Regine Gries Lab elucidates multimodal communication signals and foraging cues in a wide variety of arthropods (Araneae, Coleoptera, Diptera, Dictyoptera, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Phasmatodea, Strepsiptera, Thysanura). The lab is particularly well known for identifying vanishingly small amounts of pheromones produced by moths and gall midges. Other breakthroughs revealed the role of sound, vibration, light, and magnetic fields in arthropod communication. For example, the lab has recently shown "how flies are flirting on fly" in that some fly families use light flashes reflected off their wings in sexual communication, which was previously entirely unknown.
Gries has graduated 57 students, published 273 peer-reviewed research articles, been granted 15 patents, and produced 13 scientific films on beetles, hoverflies, and aphids in collaboration with the Institute of Scientific Film in Germany. He has received over $11 million of research support as a principal investigator and currently runs a large laboratory with 13 graduate students, three research associates, and many undergraduate students, often recruited from his insect biology class.
Gries has presented 61 invited presentations at local, national, and international meetings. He has received the ESA Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology (2016), the Entomological Society of Canada Gold Medal (2017), the ESA (Pacific Branch) Woodworth Award (with Regine Gries, 2017), and ESA's Nan-Yao Su Award for Innovation and Creativity in Entomology (2019). He was elected Fellow of the Entomological Society of Canada in 2018. As well as being a curiosity-driven researcher, Gries is a passionate teacher. His teaching of entomology and ecology courses has been recognized with an SFU Excellence in Teaching Award (1994). Gries has also mentored many undergraduate research assistants and has co-authored peer-reviewed papers with more than 50 of them. In 2019, he received the ESA (Pacific Branch) Distinction in Student Mentoring Award.
Gries considers it his hobby to run a large and diverse research program with many bright and enthusiastic students. Other hobbies are flower gardening and wildlife photography.
Dr. Bert Hölldobler (Hoelldobler), a German-American biologist, was born in the Bavarian village Erling-Andechs, Germany. He received his academic education at the universities of Würzburg and Frankfurt where, in 1971, he became professor of zoology. He is currently University Professor of Life Sciences, Regents' and Foundation Professor, at Arizona State University (ASU). Before joining ASU, he was the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (1973-1990), and he held the chair of behavioral physiology and sociobiology at the University of Würzburg, Germany (1989 – 2004). From 2002 to 2008, he was appointed Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.
Hölldobler studies the diversity of social organization in insects, ants in particular, which primarily serve as models for his work in the fields of behavioral physiology, communication biology, chemical ecology, behavioral ecology, sociobiology, and evolutionary biology. This multifaceted research has resulted in many new discoveries about multimodal communication and orientation behavior in animals, the dynamics of social structures, and the evolution of animal communities. He has published more than 300 scientific papers, essays, and book chapters and co-authored seven books. He mentored more than 60 doctoral students and postdocs, more than 30 of whom have gone on to productive careers in academia worldwide.
Hölldobler is a member of several national and international academies, among them the German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences (USA), and he served on many self-governing academic committees in Europe and the United States. He is the recipient of many awards and prizes, among them the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the German Science Foundation, the Cothenius Medal, the highest recognition of the German National Academy of Sciences, and the Pulitzer Prize (jointly with Edward O. Wilson).
Hölldobler enjoys visiting art museums and galleries and is himself an accomplished artist. He also enjoys music, from baroque, classic, to jazz, but also folk music around the world.
Dr. Gene R. Kritsky, a professor of biology and dean of the School of Behavioral and Natural Sciences at Mount St. Joseph University, was elected as an ESA Fellow in 2019. He is internationally recognized for his research on periodical cicadas and the history of science.
Kritsky was born in Minot, North Dakota, in 1953. He attended Indiana University from 1971 until 1974, where he studied under Dr. Frank N. Young Jr. He entered the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois as a university Fellow in 1974. He completed his M.S. in entomology in 1976 and his Ph.D. a year later in 1977, working with Dr. Lewis J. Stannard Jr. on the taxonomy of the Enicocephalidae, mapping the broods of periodical cicadas, and studying the history of science. He joined the Department of Biology at Tri-State University (now Trine University) as assistant professor of biology in 1977 and was promoted to associate professor in 1980. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt from 1981 to 1982, where he taught at Minya University and researched the use of insects as a hieroglyphic motif. He accepted the position of associate professor of biology at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati in 1983, becoming chair of biology in 1985, and was promoted to professor of biology in 1987. He was appointed dean of the School of Behavioral and Natural Sciences in 2016.
Kritsky's research interests include the evolution of the broods of periodical cicadas, the history of apiculture, Charles Darwin and his contributions to entomology, insects in art history, and the distribution of tiger beetles. His 246 publications include 10 books. His 1999 prediction of a four-year acceleration of Brood X in 2000 proved true and permitted the verification of a self-reproducing, off-cycle cicada emergence. Kritsky also discovered a previously unrecognized brood of 13-year cicadas in Ohio and Kentucky in 2004. His ESA publication on Darwin's Madagascan hawk moth prediction was selected by several organizations as one of the top zoology news stories of 1993. Kritsky's book The Quest for the Perfect Hive challenged the beekeeping industry to re-examine hive designs and practices to develop new innovations that could help deal with the many problems facing beekeeping today. His second book on apicultural history, The Tears of Re, was the first standalone review of beekeeping in ancient Egypt.
Kritsky served as editor-in-chief of American Entomologist for 15 years. He presented the ESA Founders' Memorial Award Lecture in 2012 and was elected as an Honorary Member of ESA in 2017. Kritsky is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Indiana Academy of Science, and he has received Distinguished Scholar Awards from both the Indiana Academy of Science and from Mount St. Joseph University.
His wife, Jessee Smith, is an artist and metalsmith whose insect-inspired designs have been featured in juried shows and exhibited at ESA meetings. She received the Mount St. Joseph Distinguished Art Alumni Award, the John Nartker Medal, in 2019.
Dr. Raymond J. St. Leger, a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland (UMD), was elected as Fellow in 2019. He is internationally known for his research on insect pathogenic fungi and the development of applications for insect pathogens against disease vectors and agricultural pests.
Professor St. Leger was born and brought up in London, England. He received a B.Sc. in biology from the University of Exeter in 1978, an M.Sc. in entomology in 1980 from Birkbeck College London University, and his Ph.D. in 1985 from the University of Bath. After graduation, St. Leger worked on fungal pathogens of insects with Donald Roberts (Boyce Thompson Institute) as a postdoc and Center scientist. He joined the entomology faculty at UMD in 1995 as an associate professor and attained the ranks of full (2001) and distinguished professor of entomology (2013).
St. Leger has published more than 150 scientific papers and book chapters, mostly directed toward using fungal parasites of insects as models for understanding how pathogens in general respond to changing environments, initiate host invasion, colonize tissues, and counter host immune responses. These investigations have also used highly accurate genome sequences to address the mechanisms by which new pathogens emerge with different host ranges. St. Leger's laboratory has altered insect pathogens in the genus Metarhizium so that they express genes encoding arthropod toxins or human antibody genes. The potential of these engineered pathogens to control vector-borne diseases such as malaria was successfully trialed in Burkina Faso. Other field trials are exploiting functional genomic tools to provide detailed knowledge of the evolutionary potential and invasion ecology of transgenic microbes and to predict the consequences of different types of human intervention (e.g., habitat fragmentation, climate change, invasive species, and genetically modified introductions). During these studies, St. Leger demonstrated that several very common insect pathogenic fungi colonize roots and have multiple beneficial effects on plant growth, besides killing insects. These observations have opened the way for using improved strains with customized properties to replace chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
St. Leger has been a consultant on biotechnology to many private and public concerns, nationally and internationally. He has presented more than 200 invited presentations at national and international conferences; he gave the Founders lecture at the 2009 Society of Invertebrate Pathology Meeting. He received UMD's Distinguished Scholar Teacher Award (2009) and the Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize (2015). St. Leger is an elected Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London (2011), AAAS (2012), and the American Academy of Microbiology (2013). He received the American Society for Microbiology Promega Biotechnology Research Award (2017) and was the inaugural recipient of the Tai Fung-Lan Award for International Cooperation from The Mycological Society of China (2016). St. Leger has an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, the University of Exeter (2018).
St. Leger has many interests besides biology, including astronomy, art, and history.
Dr. Shu-Sheng Liu, professor and former director of the Institute of Insect Sciences at Zhejiang University (ZJU), China, was elected as Fellow in 2019. He is internationally known for his research on integrated pest management (IPM) in vegetable crops and the interactions between whiteflies, whitefly-transmitted plant viruses, and their host plants.
Liu was born and grew up in the countryside of Hunan Province, China. Prior to his college study in 1974, he worked on a farm for three years. He majored in plant protection for his undergraduate study at Hunan Agricultural University (1974-1977), and then studied entomology for his postgraduate work at Zhejiang Agricultural University (1978-1980). In 1980, he was awarded a Chinese Ministry of Education scholarship to take further studies overseas and became the first overseas Ph.D. student from China's mainland in Australia. He did his Ph.D. research on biological control in the Australian National University and the Division of Entomology of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industry Research Organization. He obtained his Ph.D. in zoology from ANU in 1984 and returned to China in January 1984. Since then, he has worked as a faculty member at ZJU. He was promoted to full professor in 1991 and Qiu-Shi Distinguished Professor in 2007, and he served as director of the Institute of Insect Science from 1998 to 2007 and as deputy president, Academic Committee of ZJU, from 2012 onward.
Liu's research interests span from fundamental insect ecology to IPM. The research achievements of his team have contributed substantially to the understanding and utilization of beneficial insects in vegetable IPM. His team discovered that interspecific behavioral interactions play a unique role in facilitating whitefly invasions. In the meantime, his team revealed that whiteflies and the plant viruses the insects transmit may establish an indirect mutualistic relationship via their shared host plants, which facilitate whitefly numerical increase and, in turn, the spread of the viruses. Through a multidisciplinary approach, his team has worked in a pioneer role in unravelling the physiological and molecular mechanisms underlying the indirect mutualistic relationship between the whitefly vectors and whitefly-borne viruses.
Liu has published 330 articles in peer-reviewed science journals, 11 book chapters, and two books. He has mentored 42 Ph.D. and 40 M.Sc. students and worked as the senior lecturer of several undergraduate and postgraduate courses over the last 35 years. He has worked actively in professional societies, such as the Entomological Society of China and International Congress of Entomology (ICE), and served on the editorial boards of five Chinese and six English journals. Currently he is on the ICE Council and the Editorial Committee of Annual Review of Entomology. Among Liu's awards are ICE Certificate of Distinction (2004); Excellence in Teaching Award, ZJU (2008); Excellent National Scientist, Chinese Association of Science and Technology (2014); and University of California—Davis Storer Lectureship (2014).
Liu has been married to his wife, Li-Hua Chen, for over 40 years. Their son, Ming-Qi Liu, a biomedical scientist at Fudan University, lives in Shanghai. Liu is known among his colleagues and friends for his hobbies, including singing, playing the Chinese instrument erhu, calligraphy, tennis, and travelling.
Dr. Phillip Mulder, professor of entomology and department head of Oklahoma State University (OSU), was elected as an ESA Fellow in 2019. He is best known for extension work in several commodities, particularly pecan, and as department head at OSU for the past 12 years. As extension entomologist, he first reported on utility of the Circle trap, used in monitoring pecan weevil, Curculio caryae (Horn). As department head, Dr. Mulder and his team grew the undergraduate program at OSU from less than five students to nearly 70 students, recruiting double-digit enrollment in the major for the past seven years.
Phil was born in 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, but began traveling the world at the age of 2 with his father (Air Force), mother, and sister. Even as a toddler, his interests in entomology were evident, as he spent hours outside in Japan playing with indigenous ants. When his father retired, the family moved to Michigan, where Phil attended Ferris State College and graduated in science education. He subsequently attended Iowa State University for graduate school under the direction of Dr. William B. Showers, USDA-ARS. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Iowa State University in 1981 and 1984, respectively. In 1985, he was hired by OSU as an area extension entomologist, transferred to the OSU main campus in 1995, and assumed statewide responsibilities for a number of commodities. Dr. Mulder attained the rank of associate professor in 2000 and professor in 2004.
Dr. Mulder served as advisor or co-advisor to four Ph.D. and nine M.S. students, and as a member of 16 M.S. and 11 Ph.D. student committees. Dr. Mulder has provided more than 2,500 extension, media outreach, and research presentations, and has authored or co-authored over 150 refereed publications, invited book chapters, extension publications, and research reports, including the first e-learning short course on pecan. He has obtained more than $4 million in research and extension competitive funding and in 2004 was recognized by ESA with the Distinguished Achievement Award in Extension. Phil served as extension coordinator for the department before assuming responsibility as interim department head in 2007 and department head in 2009. He continues to oversee two disciplines, 27 faculty, nearly 100 students, four degree programs, and various budget and personnel issues.
Phil has been a member of ESA since 1979, serving in many capacities, including president of the Southwestern Branch ESA, co-chair of ESA Program Committee, and chair/games master of Linnaean Games for ESA. Phil served as ESA treasurer and, in 2015, as president of ESA. In 2016, he was president of the Entomological Foundation. Phil chaired the 2016 ESA Science Policy Capabilities Committee and helped select the first 10 Science Policy Fellows for ESA. Collectively, Phil served ESA Governing Board for 10 years. He is an Honorary Member of ESA and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society of London.
Phil and his wife, Lori, celebrated 43 years of marriage in 2019. They are parents of three children, Adam, Elizabeth (Libby), and Daniel, and five grandchildren.
Dr. Rick Roush, a professor in the Department of Entomology and dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences at Pennsylvania State University, was elected as Fellow in 2019. Rick is recognized internationally as a leading authority in research in resistance management to conventional insecticides, herbicides, and GM crops; biological control; and IPM. He is also recognized internationally as an academic administrator, with significant impacts in extension and sustainable management.
Roush was born and grew up in San Diego, California. He received a B.S. in 1976 and Ph.D. in 1979 in entomology from the University of California (UC)—Davis and UC—Berkeley, respectively, his Ph.D. with Professor Marjorie Hoy. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Texas A&M University with Professors S.B. Vinson and F.W. Plapp, then a faculty member at Mississippi State University (1981-1986), Cornell University (1987-1995), and University of Adelaide, Australia (1995-2003). While at Adelaide, he was selected as director and chief executive officer of the national Research Centre for Weed Management (1998-2003) before returning to UC—Davis as director of the statewide IPM Program (2003-2006). In 2006, Rick was appointed dean, University of Melbourne School of Land & Environment, and later appointed dean at Penn State (2014).
Roush's contributions in research have extended over four decades and resulted in more than 130 referred journal articles, books, and book chapters, as well as dozens of other articles for scientists and the general public. Roush has had a leading role in developing and implementing what have proven to be highly successful two-gene strategies for delaying resistance to Bt transgenic crops, including publishing a seminal modeling paper documenting the key features of what would make successful two-toxin crops. Roush then collaborated, beginning at Cornell with Elizabeth Earle and Anthony Shelton, to demonstrate IRM strategies using the diamondback moth and a Bt crucifer system. Also while at Cornell, his team identified the first-ever invertebrate GABA receptor while en route to identifying the mutations that confer resistance to cyclodiene insecticides, such as dieldrin. Roush has collaborated on and published more than 20 papers on predators, parasitoids, and biological control of insects and weeds, including two that have each been cited more than 300 times. He has served as major supervisor for 17 graduate students.
Roush has also had a significant impact through service on the Genetic Manipulation Advisory Committee in Australia from 1998 to 2003, and four scientific advisory panels for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Roush has served on numerous boards and review panels, including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on Pesticide Resistance Management (1984-1985).
Rick became an Australian citizen in 2002 and continues to enjoy fishing in multiple forms and countries. Roush's son Peter is an electrical engineer on radio telescopes in Sydney with Australia's national science agency, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. His daughter Alison is an educator with Keep South Australia Beautiful (KESAB), a leading NGO delivering environmental sustainability programs. With his wife Robyn Krause-Hale he shares a stepson, Matthew Hale, a stepdaughter, Stephanie Hanson, their spouses, and two grandsons.
Dr. Blair Siegfried, professor and chairman of the Entomology and Nematology Department at the University of Florida, was elected as Fellow in 2019. He is widely recognized for his research on insecticide resistance evolution and management as well as the environmental consequences of insecticide use.
Siegfried was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1959. He received his B.S. in biology from Lock Haven University (1981), where a summer internship at the Mountain Lake Biological Station fostered his interest in entomology and evolution. He earned his M.S. from the University of Florida in 1984, studying bark beetle chemical ecology, and his Ph.D. in entomology from Pennsylvania State University in 1989, where his research focused on the relationship of insect herbivory to insecticide susceptibility and resistance evolution. He also received postdoctoral training at Cornell University, where his interests in understanding insecticide resistance evolution became solidified. He was appointed assistant professor at the University of Nebraska in 1990, with research and teaching responsibilities in insecticide toxicology, and was promoted to associate professor in 1995 and full professor in 1999. In 2008, he was awarded a Charles Bessey Professorship for an exceptional record of distinguished scholarship or creative activity. In 2015, Siegfried moved to the University of Florida, where he assumed responsibility for administration of the Entomology and Nematology Department.
Siegfried's research interests involve fundamental questions about the evolution and management of insecticide resistance and the environmental impacts of pesticide use. 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 resistance management and environmental protection that has attracted attention from industry to develop new technologies and from regulatory agencies seeking his advice on registration of these technologies. Over the course of his career, Dr. Siegfried's scholarship in research has resulted in 197 published peer-reviewed articles, 14 invited reviews and book chapters, and an additional 18 technical articles and proceedings. His work has resulted in two published patents, with an additional seven active patent applications.
During his nearly 30-year career, Siegfried has actively and broadly worked to promote the profession and visibility of entomology. His accomplishments include the direct influence and mentoring of 31 graduate students, 15 postdocs, and nine international scholars who have gone on to careers in academia, industry, and medicine. He has been actively involved with service and leadership and has participated on science advisory panels, international advisory boards, and numerous university committees. He has served ESA in a number of roles, most recently as vice president and president of the Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology Section.
Siegfried has been married to Sidney Baum-Siegfried for 33 years, and his son Ethan resides in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he works for the public school system in special education. Siegfried and his wife enjoy exploring the waterways and coastal areas of North Florida and cultivating the natural diversity of his backyard.
Dr. Steve D. Wratten, Distinguished Professor of Ecology at Lincoln University and science leader at the Bio-Protection Research Centre in New Zealand, was elected as an ESA Fellow in 2019. He is a recognized world-leading researcher in agro-ecology, with a focus on the biological control of pests. He created the world's first and only biodiversity trails in vineyards and led the "beetle bank" team in the United Kingdom.
Steve was born in London, England. He attributes his interest in entomology to a school teacher who took him and others on "nature walks" after school. He received a B.Sc. (Hons), zoology, from the University of Reading in 1968, followed by a Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Glasgow in 1972 and an M.A. from the University of Cambridge. Steve went on to be awarded a D.Sc. from the University of Southampton in 1996. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2004. A further D.Sc. followed in 2006 from The University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He holds three doctorates and four professorships. He has won teaching, research, and communication awards. In 2019 he became a prestigious James Cook Fellow in New Zealand.
He is a proponent of using crop and non-crop plants to provide SNAP—shelter, nectar, alternative food, and pollen—to natural enemies of pests. This approach restores and enhances ecosystem services or "nature's services" in agriculture, thereby improving the environment and enhancing biological control of pests. He has pioneered the use of non-native and endemic New Zealand plant species in agriculture to enhance insect pest control and in this way reduce insecticide use. The methods developed by his team and trialed in the Waipara wine-growing region in Canterbury, New Zealand, are now in use in every vineyard region in New Zealand and Australia, as well as regions of the United States and Europe.
He has published approximately 400 journal articles, eight books, and 90 book chapters, and has supervised more than 90 Ph.D. students to completion. He has published papers in high-profile journals, including Nature, Ecology, Ecology Letters, PNAS, and Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. In 2014, he was named among the top 10 authors in the centenary editorial of the international journal Annals of Applied Biology.
Steve is an exceptional communicator of science and is frequently invited to speak at international conferences and workshops. He is a visiting professor at Charles Sturt University, Australia; Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, China; and Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, China.
Married to Claire, with two children and a large number of grandchildren, Steve also writes for print media in New Zealand at a rate of up to 40 columns each year. He is a mad birder—the most important book in his study is Birds of the World, which contains all of his global bird "ticks." He is also a keen vegetable gardener and worships Bob Dylan.
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 nearly 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.