Dr. Leslie Pick has a new book out through Academic Press publishers titled Fly Models of Human Diseases. More information on her book can be found here. Check out the flyer below for more details!

Ear damage? In this case, we are not talking about listening to music too loud or standing too close to the speakers at a rock concert. Instead, Dr. Galen Dively, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Entomology, has unlocked the mystery shrouding the increased dmanage to ears of corn. Read more about Dively's study here.

Dr. Dennis vanEngelsdorp  is one of two college employees named to Clarivate Analytics' 2016 list of Highly Cited Researchers (HCR). HCR is a comprehensive list of influential individuals in various scientific disciplines. More on the announcement can be found on the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS) home page.

A reflection on the career of a recent retired faculty member of the Entomology Department

Imagine having to walk across the George Washington Bridge just to find some green- green grass, trees, maybe a couple of flowers. This is what Dr. Pedro Barbosa, Entomology Professor Emeritus of the University of Maryland, did throughout his childhood. Growing up in New York, Dr. Barbosa didn’t see much nature in the city and since his family didn’t own a car, he would frequently walk across the GW Bridge to New Jersey for that purpose.

Apart from wanting to escape the concrete jungles of New York, Dr. Barbosa didn’t realize his interest in entomology until he started his undergraduate college career. He attended the City College of New York, a school on the edge of Harlem. He planned on becoming a medical doctor, but soon realized he disliked the nature of being pre-med at that time. Despite this, Dr. Barbosa always had a passion for science. As a self-described “bad student”, Dr. Barbosa only did well in the classes he liked, but those classes were all biology related. Many of the Biology teachers he got to know had a background in entomology, and drew him into the field. Once he became interested, it came easily to him. “Because I was learning about things I cared about, I did well,” he says. 

Dr. Barbosa went to the University of Massachusetts for his master’s degree and stayed there to complete a Ph.D. “I asked my advisor what it would take to be successful, and he said I would need to have 12 publications before I finished my Ph.D. I didn’t know any better so that’s what I did, I graduated with 12 publications,” he reflects.  “I was, as I used to say to myself, street smart, but world stupid. However, he has always been so grateful that his advisor did not underestimate his potential because of his background.