From the desk of Kris Braman

Our UGA Entomology Department is delighted to congratulate Will Hudson, Ash Sial and Kelly Carruthers for their recent IPM and SEB awards and selection as a Service-Learning Fellow. Kudos to Kevin Vogel who received an NSF Early Career Award. Our graduate students have also been bringing home awards and taking leadership roles in outreach and youth education initiatives highlighted in this issue. And thanks to the Griffin Campus for hosting our annual faculty retreat!

We were saddened to learn of Justin Schmidt’s passing. We are grateful to Justin and his wife Li who have been so gracious in support of our students. The annual student-select seminar that they have supported has brought some wonderful alumni back to campus to share their science and experiences with our students.

This issue of our newsletter contains last year’s journal articles published by the department. Once again, I am struck by the breadth and depth of our programs. Please take a look at the work being done by faculty, staff, and students from IPM across a great diversity of commodities to wetland and wild bee ecology to microbial symbiont and disease research, mosquito physiology, insecticide resistance, beetle taxonomy and forest ecology to crop agroecology. There is something to interest everyone!

One initiative that has grown wings has been the Great Pollinator Census under Becky Griffin’s leadership. To date, there have been 20,000 participants who have created over 2,000 new pollinator spaces in over 100 Georgia counties. Now South Carolina, North Carolina, and Florida will join us to create the Great Southeastern Pollinator Census. Be sure and hold the August 18th and 19th dates this summer and participate. It only takes 15 minutes of your time!