Lab Alumni

Eric earned his PhD from Penn State in May 2014 and started working for the EPA.

I am interested in the relationships between agricultural pests and their arthropod predators as well as insect-plant interactions in sustainable farming systems. My research goals are to assess slug population density and movement which could aid farmers in preventing crop damage. I am also interested in investigating plant defense mechanisms against slugs as well as the ecology of fear in slugs.

I am researching crop relatedness in sustainable agriculture systems because I want to find out how insects populate/respond to different crop pairings to help improve pest resistance on diversified farms without relying too heavily on insecticides. Keeping grower preferences and economics in mind, our crop configurations may help farmers harness ecosystem services while decreasing input costs.

Assistant Professor, Dickinson College

I am a nutritional ecologist who works on generalist herbivores. My research seeks to understand how generalists solve the problem of balancing multiple and changing nutrient needs while dealing with plant defense. I like to use a physiological approach in order to gain insights into mechanisms underlying ecological patterns and processes.

I am interested in how plants perceive and respond to insect chemical cues. My current research expands from the ongoing work in our lab with goldenrod and explores whether other plants species can detect and respond to pheromones from their co-evolved herbivores.

Ian earned his PhD from Penn State in August 2015 and started working as a postdoc in the lab Larry Godfrey at UC-Davis.

Assistant Professor of Entomology, Texas A&M

Sarah is studying the influence of crop rotations on pest populations, as well as the activity of neonicotinoid insecticides in the environment.

I worked as a Research Technologist with Kevin Rice. Primarily, I assisted on several projects to further our understanding of Brown Marmorated Stink Bug ecology by focusing on its behavior in agricultural systems. I like to run.

I investigate interactions among invasive species, native plants and arthropods. I’m primarily interested in how plant defenses affect invasive herbivore host-plant choice and fitness.

I am interested in how soil microbial communities influence plant defenses against herbivorous insect pests, and how these communities are shaped by on-farm management practices aimed at improving soil health

I am currently researching bee and flower interactions and how floral nutrition influences bee foraging behavior.