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Alumni...

Richard J. Brenner (M.S. 1976), research entomologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture, was named "Outstanding Senior Scientist of the Year" by the Agricultural Research Service, USDA’s chief research agency. A native of Kankakee, IL, he earned his B.S. in forestry and M.S. in medical entomology from the University of Illinois in 1976.

Satish R. Chandran (Ph.D. 1965), professor of biology, Kennedy-King College, Chicago, was elected to the national Human Anatomy & Physiology Society as Regional Director (Central). Other activities include teaching anatomy and physiology to nursing and dental hygiene students.

Robert W. Clegern (Ph.D. 1972), adjunct assistant professor, University of Maryland University College, was Executive Director, Armed Forces Pest Management Board, the top entomologist position in the Department of Defense. The Board manages DOD’s entomology program. In 1988, he was chosen Outstanding Entomologist by the American Registry of Professional Entomologist of ESA in the category of medical veterinary, urban, and industrial entomology. He married Linda Fink on October 19, 1996.

Mike Cohen (Ph.D. 1991) has been at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines since 1994, working on host plant resistance through genetic engineering and conventional breeding. Much of his work involves resistance management for Bt rice, and he is also active in other issues related to rice genetic engineering, including biosafety, public awareness, and interaction between public sector institutes and the private sector. (Those who remember Mike’s political activities while at UIUC might not be too surprised to hear of his involvement in policy issues!) Mike has graduated Ph.D. students from Somalia, Bangladesh, and Iran, and currently is supervising students from Vietnam and the Philippines.

Ed W. Cupp (Ph.D. 1969) is serving as head, Department of Entomology, Auburn University. His primary research interests include natural history and vector biology of the Simuliidae and Culicidae, and epidemiology of arthropod-borne diseases.

David Denlinger (Ph.D. 1971), Head, Department of Entomology, Ohio State University, received the 1999 Entomological Society of America’s Founders’ Award.

Leonard Dintenfass is a senior scientist with Dow Elanco, Indianapolis, IN.

R. Earl Grossman (M.S. 1957) was recognized with an Award of Merit at the Agriculture Alumni Associ-ation’s annual meeting and awards luncheon in 1994. A retired senior vice president of Growmark, Inc., he received his B.S. in agriculture in 1953 and his M.S. in entomology in 1957 from the University of Illinois.

Susan E. Halbert (Ph.D. 1979) works for the Florida State Department of Agriculture. She was just appointed as a member of the E.S.A. Common Names Committee (1999-2001).

Ralph E. Harbach (Ph.D. 1976), research associate, Entomology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, has co-authored three books and published 56 articles on aspects of mosquito morphology, systematics, and biology.

Robert Harwood (Ph.D. 1954) is retired and living in Spokane, WA. He is still active in Washington State University Department of Entomology activities and an accomplished practitioner of gyotaku, the Japanese art of making of fish prints.

Ellen Heininger Yerger (Ph.D. 1989)is presently a stay-at-home mom for Elizabeth, 4-1/2 and Lorraine, 2-1/2.

Chien-Fu Hung (Ph.D. 1996) spent 27 months at the University of Pennsylvania and recently accepted a postdoc offer at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, studying a vaccine against cervical cancer. In late December, with his wife and two daughters, he moved to northern Baltimore.

Kenneth L. Knight (Ph.D. 1941) is a retired Naval officer and former Head, Entomology, North Carolina State University. His research area was mosquito taxonomy as well as mosquito biology and control.

Robert E. Lewis (Ph.D. 1959), emeritus professor, Iowa State University, is editor and publisher of Flea News, now on-line (www.ent.iastate.edu/fleanews/aboutfleanews.html).

Ed Lisowski (Ph.D. 1985), after law school, started working for an attorney in Yakima. The only reason to live in Yakima are the vast areas of public lands. "I can drive 60 miles and go from desert to subalpine forest, then go a few more miles (once the passes melt out) to a national park with 1,000-year-old rainforests and a ‘resting’ volcano. Gene Miliczky (Ph.D. 1985) works for a USDA lab near here. We are taking an alpine travel class taught at the community college. Its focus is safe backpacking in the Cascades. I mainly wanted to learn how to do an ice axe arrest when sliding down a steep icy slope. In the winter, I spend a lot of time on very steep slopes looking for Boreus and Chionea."

Eric S. McCloud (Ph.D. 1995), assistant professor, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville, teaches plant physiology and an upper level course in plant-insect interactions. He has been doing research on the mechanisms of wound-signal transduction in plants. In his spare time, he occasionally brews a batch of beer.

Mark S. McClure (Ph.D. 1975) is director and chief scientist, The Valley Laboratory, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. Along with administrative duties, he maintains an active research program in the ecology and control of piercing and sucking insects on trees and shrubs.

Jennifer E. Mehren (B.S., 1996), winner of a Churchill Scholarship for a year of study at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England, is in graduate school at Brandeis University in developmental biology.

Janina Morgalla, before moving to Madison, WI, worked for the State Natural History Survey and the State Water Survey in Illinois.

Norman D. Penny (M.S. 1970) supervises maintenance and growth of the insect collection at the California Academy of Sciences. He is also Chair-elect, Section A of the E.S.A.

Lance G. Peterson (Ph.D. 1968) is a field development specialist for Dow Elanco’s North American Insect/Disease Management Research and Development, Tallahassee, FL. He also helps develop insecticides, miticides, fungicides, and fumigants in crops for the Southeast U.S., primarily Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and north Florida.

Peter W. Price (former faculty) is Regents’ professor, Northern Arizona University. "What treasure and what history the Entomology Newsletter 1996 reveals to the crusty old farts like me that were there, yea those many years ago. I must admit to watery eyes when I learned of the recent accounts from so many of the fine academics and human beings I interacted with when present in the department. This volume reinforced my great pride in being involved with such an eminent department, meaning involvement with fine scientists and human beings. I read about you (May), knowing of your domination over the insults of mediocrity, and Stewart Berlocher, who assuredly will name his second child "Urbana," and Stanley Friedman, the most effective and lovely chair one could wish for, and Bill Horsfall whose mastery of mosquito bionomics was unchallenged, and Ellis MacLeod, the greatest teacher I have ever experienced (I still use his notes), and the master of our entomological science, Bob Metcalf. Speaking of our great scientists, I was sorry to note the absence of a report from Gotfried Fraenkel. I am sure he is content, but he might have enlightened us on the insect diversity out there. And then I read about Jim Sternburg and Gil Waldbauer enjoying retirement, and I wished for the time that Gil can devote to writing books, fine books.

May you, May, and the department continue to prosper as it has in the past!!! With your intellectual mastery over the plebeians in administration I think it will. For me the images remain of the faculty I knew so well, and the parting shot in cyber-optics of Ellis and Stewart pretending to be serious academics. I am waiting for the next newsletter—in 2008 AD???

Roscoe Randell (Ph.D. 1970), consultant, Growmark, Inc., served as Cooperative Extension advisor for UIUC and became area Extension adviser in 1965. From 1965-1971, he was an instructor at UIUC; promoted to assistant professor in 1971; associate professor in 1977; and professor of extension entomology in 1983. He retired from UIUC in 1991 and was awarded professor emeritus status. Roscoe wrote or co-authored more than 80 publications during his career.

Craig Reid (Ph.D. 1989), currently residing in Los Angeles, serves as assistant fight choreographer on CBS’ Martial Law with Sammo Hung. Sylvia Reid is at the Jules Stein Eye Institute, UCLA, working on order dominance plasticity and animal models of diseases of the visual system.

Robert C. Rendtorff (M.S. 1939) is professor emeritus in Preventative Medicine and Microbiology, University of Tennessee College of Medicine.

Nathan Schiff (Ph.D. 1988), research entomologist, U.S. Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Center for Bottomland Hardwoods, Stoneville, MS, studies the relationships between siricoid wood wasps and their endosymbiont wood decay fungi, saw-fly biology, and, peripatetically, biological control of kudzu. "If you’re in the south, ya’ll come on down and set a spell. UI alums are welcome."

Walter Steven Sheppard (Ph.D. 1986) took a USDA postdoctoral fellowship in Beltsville, MD, in 1986. "I was able to continue studies on honey bee population genetics, although geared toward introduced populations of South America. In 1988, I was hired as a research entomologist for the USDA Bee Research Laboratory. In this position, I set up a morphometric identification laboratory (we identified bees from port entries and those involved in ‘severe stinging incidents’ across the US) and continued research on Africanized honey bees and the genetic consequences of hybridization using molecular markers. As some of the molecular tools proved suitable to study other introduced or host-shifted insect populations, I was able to apply them in collaborative research on Colorado potato beetles and Medflies. Having long been interested in the evolution of honey bees, I also began molecular systematic studies on them.

In 1996, I took a position at Washington State University as the Thurber Chair of Apiculture. My lab conducts research directed toward helping the beekeeping industry (e.g., development of alternative control methods for parasitic mites). More recently I have begun breeding programs, projects on conservation genetics of endangered subspecies (Malta and Egypt), and research into mechanisms of genetic differentiation among populations. In 1997, I received the Eastern Apicultural Society Hambleton Award for Outstanding Research.

"In my personal life, Carol Anelli and I were married in 1987. We have a 10-year-old son (Walter) who, despite our discouragement, seems unduly interested in entomology. Following the move to Washington State, we bought a 1955 Piper Tri-Pacer to explore the nearby western geography and roadless wilderness. So far we have made a cross-country flight from Washington to Connecticut and Georgia–with a brief stop in Urbana."

Tawatchai Sitchawat (M.S. 1975), executive manager, Hoechst Schering AgrEvo, Thailand, develops and registers compounds developed by HQ in Germany or other third party companies to sell in crop protection of Thai agriculture. His scope of work has expanded to cover products for Environmental Health.

Lane Smith (Ph.D. 1987) is teaching at Concordia College in Selma, AL.

Susanne Timmermann (postdoc 1999)is working for a contract company, testing agrochemicals and chemicals for environmental safety. "I will head the quality assurance unit starting July 1 and will move near Pforzheim (half an hour from Stuttgart). It is a completely new topic for me and I am not working in the lab anymore but on the administrative side."

Mike Toliver (Ph.D. 1979) is teaching at Eureka College, Eureka, IL, "perhaps best known as the alma mater of Ronald Reagan. Eureka was the first college in Illinois, and only the third in the nation, to admit women on an equal basis with men. Founded by abolitionists, it was also one of the earliest colleges to admit African-Americans. The gentleman who wrote the basis for the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights also was a graduate.

"Since Eureka is a teaching college, that is what I do. May wanted me to list all the things I teach, so here goes: I teach General Biology, Principles of Biology I and II, Animal Behavior, Science in Context, Botany,

Zoology, Ecology, Evolution, Western Civilization and Culture, and I occasionally teach the senior seminar course (capstone course for all students), honors seminars (Peg and I did one together a couple of times on Creation Imagery), and the Science & Math seminar (required of all science, math, and computer science majors). I generally have 24-26 contact hours per week—a teaching load usually in excess of 24 hours a year. We don’t have a graduate program, so I do all the lab set-up and take-down myself, along with all the other tasks related to teaching science. On top of that, I serve on numerous committees, etc.—so I’m basically busier than a one-legged frog on a freeway. There is no time for research, but I’ve managed to maintain my interest in Lepidoptera and have done a few things with biogeography and evolution and mating behavior. Maybe some day I’ll be able to write some of it up. I did host the annual meeting of the Lepidopterists’ Society last summer. We had close to 100 in attendance and had some very good papers. I just retired as Chair of the Science & Mathematics Division after 7 years. I enjoyed my time there—but I’m no administrator!

"Tragedy struck last spring when our Dean was murdered by his son (who is mentally ill). Dr. Gammon was a remarkable person, and his loss will be felt for a very long time. I gave a eulogy at his funeral, and served as Chair of the search committee to ‘replace’ him. That task is now behind me, but the loss of Gary will be with me the rest of my life.

"Had a few other more personal set-backs this last year—a lepidopterist friend, David Gaskin, who had also served in Southeast Asia (in his case with the British Army in Malaysia and with the Aussies in Vietnam) died in late summer from cancer. My mom passed away in January of this year. One hopes the rest of the year will be an improvement...

"Peg is doing well. Our daughter Colleen is still a constant joy (she almost beat me in Monopoly last night!), but she’s approaching the teen years. HELP!!! We acquired a dog (Yoda) and a new house on the lake in town. Peg and I have plans to do a natural history of the lake, and have been recording our observations in one format or another for almost a year (just saw a Common Loon on the lake on April 16, and we had a Bald Eagle fly over the house. We enjoy our lives, and would be pleased to see you."

Donald M. Tuttle (Ph.D. 1952) is retired and resides in Yuma, AZ. He occasionally collects insects in Arizona and during his travels.

Charles Vossbrinck (Ph.D. 1987) and family have settled in Wallingford, CT. He is working at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, and is also woring on the Petrunkevitch Spider Collection at the Peabody Museum of Natural History on Yale’s campus. His research focuses on the molecular phylogeny of spiders and on the evolution of para-sitism using aquatic microsporidia as model systems. Bettina, his wife, is a research technician in Yale’s Department of Pathology, working on early detection methods of breast cancer. Their children, Alice (14), Kate (11), Madeline (9), and Henry (6), miss Urbana sorely but are doing well in school and enjoy Connecticut.

Entomology

Integrative Biology University of Illinois

Updated 12/09/99