A note from Dr. Siegfried

This fall, we welcomed 19 new graduate students to our department. We also have six master's graduates continuing on for their Ph.D. degrees.

At the RECs we have had another new hire for the department! Dr. Xavier Martini has joinined us at the North Florida Research & Education Center to work on insect vectors of plant pathogens. Dr. Martini is also active on Twitter, you can follow him at @XavierMartini.

The International Congress of Entomology (ICE) will be held in Orlando from September 25th-30th. For those attending the upcoming ICE meeting mark your calendars for the joint reception of the Florida Entomological Society and our UF Entomology and Nematology Department.  Please join us on Monday, September 26 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. in Room Signature 1 of the Rosen Centre to renew old acquaintances, welcome new members, and learn about all the good things happening in our department and society.

~Dr. Blair Siegfried (on Twitter @Blair_Siegfried)

ABOVE: Dr. Faith Oi was invited to speak at PestWorld East (Aug 27-29, 2016). For the first time, the event was held in India and was co-organized by the Indian Pest Control Association and the National Pest Management Association. A record 529 registrants from the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia attended sessions on IPM, mosquito, rodent, cockroach, termite, bed bug control as well as industry professionalism and the global evolution of the pest management industry. Our alumnus Dr. Dini Miller, currently at Virginia Tech, was also invited. A cursory inspection of the Taj Mahal revealed black crazy ants, Paratrechina longicornis; ghost ants (Tapinoma melanocephalum), possibly Camponotus compressus, mosquito larvae and a swarm of unidentified dragon flies spotted at Humuyan’s tomb.

Dr. Adam Dale became an affiliate faculty member of the UF/IFAS Center for Landscape Conservation and Ecology as the landscape entomologist.

Joshua Hildebrandt, an undergraduate Anthropology major pursuing an Entomology minor, and a well-loved member of our community, passed away September 4th, 2016. Josh was a familiar face around the department and in the entomology community. In addition to being an active member of the Entomology Club and working on an honor's thesis project in Dr. Andrea Lucky's lab, he was also employed at the Division of Plant Industry where he was part of the FDACS Cooperative Agriculture Pest Survey trapping program that focused on Old World Bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera).

ABOVE: Josh discovered entomology through a course at Santa Fe College, taught by Dr. Carl Barfield, who pointed him in our direction. Once Josh found his way to the UF Entomology and Nematology Department, as he himself said, he found his home. Josh's enthusiasm for entomology and natural history was irrepressible. He often coordinated student field trips to collect insects and was an eager assistant on a diverse array of research project and at outreach events. His excitement about the insects was surpassed only by his interest in people. As his friends and acquaintances well know, Josh was quick with a joke or a warm comment to put a stranger at ease, and ever ready to help out a friend with a problem.

Josh was born with a congenital heart defect and he was the recipient of a heart transplant six years ago. Despite the health challenges he faced, he refused to let this define him - he wanted to be recognized for his accomplishments and for the person he was, rather than the circumstances that he was born into. He was explicit that his wish was for people to celebrate his life rather than mourning his loss. The entomology community and Josh's family and friends held a remembrance of Josh on the evening of Thursday September 8th by sharing photos and stories of how he touched our lives.

A memorial service will be held next Thursday, September 15th, at 4:30pm at the Harn Museum of Art. All are welcome to join us in honoring Josh. We will also keep his memory alive with the Joshua Hildebrandt Memorial Scholarship Fund, which was created to support students with financial need who are interested in entomological research. Josh's family has requested that in lieu of flowers donations be made to this fund. The undergraduate entomology club chose to remember Josh by planting a native fruit tree in NATL, a place that Josh loved.

From August 8th to the 11th graduate student Benjamin Waldo traveled to Los Cruces New Mexico to attend a 4-day workshop on Nematode Identification hosted by New Mexico State University and taught by Dr. Paul De Lay from UC Riverside.

Doctoral candidate in entomology Anita Neal named new IFAS District Extension Director for South District!  

Lauren Cirino (Ph.D. student) and Paige Carlson (undergraduate student) both in Dr. Christine Miller’s lab, delivered an oral presentation on science communication education entitled “Broadening the voice of science: promoting scientific communication in the undergraduate classroom” at the CALS Teaching Enhancement Symposium. Lauren presented from a co-teacher perspective and Paige presented from the undergraduate student perspective.

We are proud to announce the recipients of the Fall 2016 ENSO Travel Grants:

Lisbeth Espinoza-Lozano
Jason Williams
Qinwen Xia

Each recipient will receive up to $500, jointly funded by Dr. Norm Leppla and ENSO, to cover travel expenses associated with conferences or research.

Here are the final results of our 2016-2017 ENSO election. Please welcome our new officers! 

President: Paul Joseph
Vice President: Brittany Campbell
Secretary: Mike Vickers
Treasurer/Social Media Chair: Oliver Keller
Fundraising Chair: Ethan Doherty
Historian: Rachel Atchison

ABOVE: The Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab is hosting Mubasshir Sohail as a visiting researcher from the University of Sargodha, Pakistan. Mubasshir will be with the lab for six months during which time he is conducting experiments on various control measures of wax moths, a common pest of managed honey bee colonies both in Florida and in Pakistan. This research is a part of the work that he is doing for his doctoral dissertation which he will complete at the end of this year.

Alumni in the news!

With the growing threat of Zika,  you might enjoy this video from one of Dr. Roxanne Connolly’s students. Andy Lima received his MS degree in Medical Entomology under Roxanne’s direction several years ago. He is now employed by the Fairfax County Health Department in Virginia and continues to work on mosquito control issues.

Dr. Delano Lewis, Entomology and Nematology Alumni (Ph.D., 2010, graduate from the McGuire Center, Dr. Thomas Emmel), former Assistant Professor of Biology and Director of Research for Northern Caribbean University (NCU) was recently promoted to Associate Professor and asked to serve as Chair of the Biology, Chemistry and Environmental Sciences department. In July, he and his wife and their children, two boys aged 6 and 3, and their 18 month old daughter, visited the McGuire Center FLMNH where he served as a graduate research assistant, post-doc, and assistant scientist/assistant curator.

From the Outreach Coordinator

We would like to introduce our new outreach coordinator, Laurel Lietzenmayer, who is joining us from Transylvania University. She will be working on spider behavior with Dr. Lisa Taylor.

A big thank you to the students and faculty who volunteered for last month’s outreach events.

• 19 August- Girl Scout department tour- Erin Powell

Upcoming Events

• September 30th- Star Christian School department tour
• October 1st- ButterflyFest at FLMNH
• October 4th- Educator Open House at FLMNH
• October 13th- Oak Hall Lower School department tour
• October 28th- Chiles Elementary School

ABOVE: A group of Girl Scouts toured our department in August

The live critters are always a hit with children and adults alike. The critters are available for you to check out should you be leading an outreach event. We have doubles of our most popular critters, as well as various native insect species depending on the time of year. We have large wood and Plexiglas cages for viewing our native orb weaving spiders. There is one travel cage and one larger static cage. Please be sure to contact us and review the protocol on transporting and handling the critters if you are not already familiar with it. If you lead an outreach, be sure to fill out a documentation form so your event can be included in the newsletter and we can log all outreach events.