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2021

  • Jamora Hamilton successfully defended her PhD and is now Dr. Jamora Hamilton. Congratulations!
  • Congratulations to Jamora Hamilton for being awarded a $1,500 Scholarship by the NC Pest Management Association. Jamora received the award at NCPMA’s Annual Pest Control Technicians’ School (Virtual). Screenshot
  • Congratulations to Jamora Hamilton for winning a Pest Management Foundation scholarship in the amount of $2,000 to support her studies in the field of urban entomology.

2020

  • Congratulations Dr. Johanna Elsensohn for defending her PhD. Johanna has taken a postdoc position with with Tracy Leskey (USDA-ARS, Kearneysville, WV).
  • Congratulations and farewell to Eduardo Hatano. Edu accepted a Senior Scientist position with Firmenich, a fragrance and flavor company in Geneva, Switzerland. (Socially distanced farewell)
  • Farewell (virtual) to Min Li. After a 12-month sabbatical in our lab, Min headed back home to Tianjin, and Tianjin Normal University. We hope to connect again soon, in person, after the pandemic.
  • Maria González-Morales was selected as SMART Ambassador of the DoD Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) graduate fellowship program. Congratulations.
  • Congratulations to Ayako Wada-Katsumata for being elected as Councilor for the Asia-Pacific Association of Chemical Ecologists (APACE).
  • The COVID-19 pandemic did not get in the way of Mauri Hickin and Maria González-Morales successfully completing their written and oral (on Zoom) preliminary exams, qualifying them as candidates for the PhD degree. Hooray!
  • Welcome Chris Hayes. Chris completed a MS program in Global Health at Duke University’s Global Health Institute, and started work toward a PhD with us. Welcome!
  • Congratulations to Jamora Hamilton and Eduardo Hatano for winning the inaugural awards for PhD students and postdoctoral associates in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology. Each will receive up to $750 towards expenses for travel to professional meetings or other eligible professional development expenses.
  • Congratulations to Zach and Maryann DeVries on the birth of baby Andrew Thomas DeVries.
  • Congratulations to Maria González-Morales for being awarded a $1,500 Scholarship by the NC Pest Management Association. Maria received the award at NCPMA’s Annual Pest Control Technicians’ School, where she also presented a P-Phase 50-minute talk. Aram Mikaelyan presented an update from NCSU and a W-phase talk, and Jamora Hamilton presented a research update. Samantha McPherson participated in pesticide applicator certification training with Mike Waldvogel and Patty Alder.
  • Congratulations to Mike Waldvogel for winning the Ort Family Scholarship Award for Outstanding Cooperative Extension Personnel. This award “recognizes members of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Faculty and Staff who have demonstrated exceptional capacities to empower people and provide solutions through their professional leadership and vision.”

2019

  • We had an excellent Entomological Society of America meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. Nine lab members attended and gave paper presentations, including Saveer Ahmed, Zach DeVries, Maria González-Morales, Jamora Hamilton, Eduardo Hatano, Mauri Hickin, Samantha McPherson, Ayako Wada-Katsumata, and Coby Schal. Zach and Coby organized a symposium on Indoor Pests and Human Health: Advocating for Interdisciplinary Interactions. Ayako and Eduardo presented in a symposium on Cuticular Hydrocarbons in Insect Communication and Physiology.
  • Congratulations to Jamora Hamilton for winning 1st place in the MUVE paper presentation competition of the Entomological Society of America meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. Jamora’s paper: “Effects of ingesting the insect growth regulator novaluron on German cockroach (Blattella germanica) survivorship, feeding behavior, and reproduction”.
  • Min Li arrives from Tianjin Normal University for a 12-month sabbatical in our lab. Welcome!
  • Congratulations to Zach DeVries for being selected as one of 13 nationwide NIH-DP5 (NIH Director’s Early Independence Award) award winners. This high risk/high reward program transitions graduate students directly into independent faculty positions. The award is $1.25 million direct costs for 5 years. This is a first for NC State and for the Triangle (Duke, UNC-CH). Zach will take the award to his new tenure-track Urban Entomology position at the University of Kentucky.  NCSU Press Release   NCSU Graduate School  NIH Press Release  NIH Director’s Early Independence Award Recipients   Media:  PCT   Weeknews.org   WRAL
  • Congratulations to Maria González-Morales for being selected by the Pest Management Foundation Board of Trustees to receive a $2,000 scholarship to support her studies in urban entomology. The Pest Management Foundation’s mission is to advance the pest management industry through education, research, and outreach.
  • Zach DeVries interviewed on the National Pest Management’s NPMAbugbyte. Episode 2: Zach Devries Highlights Exciting Bed Bug and Cockroach Research.  Listen live
  • Congratulations to Jamora Hamilton for being selected for the National Pest Management 2019 internship program. Jamora attended PestWorld in San Diego October 15-18, the largest annual gathering in the world of pest management professionals. She presented in a session: The Next Generation of Urban Entomologists.
  • Congratulations to Maria González-Morales for being selected to compete at the NCALS Research Competition that includes a 2-minute presentation accompanied by a single slide.
  • Fan Zhang arrives from Shandong Normal University for a 6-month sabbatical in our lab. Welcome!
  • Madhavi Kakumanu presented a talk at the Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Louisville, Kentucky. Her talk on “Microbial diversity of urban pests: German cockroach vs Bed bug” was part of a session on Using Microbiomes of Non-Model Invertebrates to Test Ecological Theory.
  • Coby Schal completed a year as President of the International Society of Chemical Ecology, at the annual meeting at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
  • Saveer Ahmed presented a paper at the Annual NC State University Postdoc Symposium on “Mating and starvation modulate host-seeking and feeding behavior in bed bug females, Cimex lectularius“.
  • Congratulations Maria González-Morales and Jamora Hamilton for winning NC State Graduate School Diversity Enhancement Grant Awards.
  • See Gizmodo article about our lab, by Ed Cara, photos by Jeff Camaratti of Getty Images: Blood Feasts and Roach Vacuums: The Life of an Urban Pest Scientist.
  • Congratulations Maria González-Morales for receiving a $2,000 Pi Chi Omega Scholarship award.
  • Congratulations to Eduardo Hatano for winning 3rd place at the NCALS Research Competition that included a 2-minute presentation accompanied by a single slide.  Photo
  • Saveer Ahmed presented a paper at the 20th Annual Student/Postdoc Symposium of the W. M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology on “Mating and starvation modulate host-seeking and feeding behavior in bed bug females, Cimex lectularius“.
  • Congratulations to Colin Funaro for winning the W. M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology 2019 Robert and Margaret Grossfeld Award in recognition of the best publication of 2018: Funaro C.F., Böröczky, K., Vargo, E.L. and Schal, C. 2018. Identification of a queen and king recognition pheromone in the subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1721419115. (see the paper and media coverage at Publications)
  • Congratulations Jamora Hamilton for passing the written and oral PhD qualifying exams.
  • Congratulations to Jamora Hamilton and Mauri Hickin for being selected as part of a group of 18 students from the College of Veterinary Medicine, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the Graduate School to participate in the 2019-2020 Graduate Peer Mentoring Collaborative, designed to train select PhD students in the skills of mentoring and supporting them to design a mentoring initiative for their departments/programs.
  • Congratulations Maria González-Morales for winning a DoD Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) graduate fellowship for her research on bed bugs: $38,000 annual stipend for 3 years. Way to go, Maria!
  • Zach DeVries accepted a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Urban Entomology at the University of Kentucky. CONGRATULATIONS!
  • Kudos to Maria González-Morales for winning 1st place in the PhD Poster Competition at the Southeastern Branch Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, Mobile, Alabama.
  • Congratulations to the NC State Team for winning the South Eastern Branch, Entomological Society of America, Linnaean Games!  NC State triumphed over Arkansas (90–35), Clemson (100–50), and, in the finals, against Florida (150–60). They will go on to compete at the national level in St. Louis at the annual meeting in November. Team members are left to right, Samantha McPherson, Meredith Spence Beaulieu, Maria González-Morales and Laura Kraft. The team is coached by Matt Bertone.
  • Congratulations Mauri Hickin for winning 2nd place in the 10 min oral presentation competition of the Entomology Graduate Student Symposium.
  • Congratulations Samantha McPherson for passing the oral and written PhD qualifying exams.
  • Eduardo Hatano represented the W.M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology at the Animal Behavior Conference of the Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior at Indiana University. Eduardo presented a poster on “Environmental factors as activating agents of semiochemicals for the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana“.
  • Happy Valentine’s Day: Coby Schal in Five reasons to fall in love with the cockroach
  • Zach DeVries‘s paper on Total Release Foggers in BMC Public Health.  Link   NCSU Press Release  Science  UPI   Science Daily   EurekAlert   Phys.org   Fox News   New York Post   Business Standard   Yahoo News   Foreign Affairs   Tech Times   News-Medical.net   Gizmodo   PCT Magazine  C&EN  Boing Boing   Earth.com  Beyond Pesticides   FairWarning   The Doctor will See you Now   The Medical News   Tucson Sentinel   NC Health News   Science Magazine  Natural History Magazine  ABC Raleigh (2:40 min video)  WRAL Raleigh (3:30 min video)
  • Congratulations to Samantha McPherson for receiving the 2019 North Carolina Pest Management Association Graduate Student Scholarship during the NCPMA 69th annual Pest Control Technicians’ School. More than 1,000 attended this event, the largest State association meeting in the world! Patricia Alder, Mike Waldvogel and Samantha McPherson provided pesticide applicator certification training for 120 pest management employees preparing for the pesticide applicator exams for household and wood-destroying pests as well as structural fumigation. Maria González-Morales presented a research update, and Coby Schal conducted P-phase training.
  • NCSU’s Urban Structural Entomology Program teamed up with the NC Pest Management Association for the first annual NCSU Hands On Training (“HOT”) program held at the training facility. Patricia Alder, Mike Waldvogel and Samantha McPherson ran the HOT class.

2018

2017

2016

2015

  • Jeremy Heath awarded 2-year Postdoctoral Fellowship from USDA-NIFA.
  • Jamora Hamilton awarded IMSD Pre-doctoral Fellowship.
  • Eduardo Hatano arrived as a new postdoc in chemical ecology.
  • Madhavi Kakumanu arrives as a new postdoc in microbial ecology.
  • Rick Santangelo and Zach DeVries in the Technician: NCSU Student Newspaper.
  • Johanna Elsensohn was member of the Overall Best Debate Team. Student Debates at Entomological Society of America. Topic: “With the development of tools like RNAi, in the future we may be capable of eradicating species. If we can eradicate a species, should we?” Con position.
  • Johanna Elsensohn was selected Science Policy Fellow, Entomological Society of America.
  • Ayako Wada-Katsumata paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on gut bacteria and aggregation pheromones: Link  NCSU   Science   Scientific American   The Scientist   Smithsonian   German Public Radio   Science Codex   EurekaAlert   C&EN      Daily Mail   Inverse   Motherboard  PCT
  • Coby Schal awarded Alexander Quarles Holladay Medal for Excellence, highest faculty award at NCSU.
  • Coby Schal awarded Recognition Award in Urban Entomology, Entomological Society of America.
  • Zach DeVries awarded $3,000 John V. Osmun Memorial Scholarship from Pi Chi Omega.
  • Yvonne Matos awarded $1,500 Scholarship from the North Carolina Pest Management Association.
  • Zach Devries awarded $2,000 Foundation for Toxicology and Agromedicine Supplementary Scholarship.

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