ESA is pleased to announce the winners of its 2010 awards. Professional awards will be presented at the Opening Plenary Session of the ESA Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, Sunday, December 12, 5:30-7:30 p.m. The student awards will be presented on Tuesday, December 14, 8:00-9:00 p.m. The awardees are listed below.
Kennedy's research in insect management, insect-plant interactions, arthropod-resistance management, and epidemiology of insect-vectored plant viruses has produced over 180 research publications. A member of ESA since 1970, Kennedy served as Secretary, Vice-chair and Chair of Section F; ESA Governing Board Representative for Section F (1989-1992) and for the Southeastern Branch (1993-1995); and as President-Elect (1997), President (1998) and Past-President (1999) of ESA.
He served as Chair of the ESA Special Committees on Publications (1981, 1984-85, and 1999-2000) and was a leader in ESA's transition to electronic publication of its journals and in re-organization of the editorial structure for the journals, which significantly reduced production costs and enabled ESA to provide members with free on-line access. Kennedy also served the Entomological Foundation as Chair of the Board of Directors (2004-2005) and President (2006-2008). He received the ESA Award for Excellence in Research in 1997, and was named the ESA Founders' Memorial Award Lecturer in 2002, and became an ESA Fellow in 2003.
She has co-authored a seminal book on conservation of germplasm for insect resistance in addition to 95 refereed journal articles, books, book chapters, and over 150 other technical publications. Quisenberry has been a leader within numerous professional societies as well as many international, national, regional, state, and university committees and boards, but her service and contribution to the Entomological Society of America has been beyond compare since she became a member in 1975.
Working at the Branch, Section, and ESA Central levels, she has contributed to over 30 committees (e.g., Program Chair; Local Arrangements Chair; Editorial Board Chair; Branch Student Awards Chair) and numerous leadership roles (e.g., ESA President; ESA Secretary-Treasurer; Section F Secretary and Chair-Elect; Pacific Branch Secretary-Treasurer). When Quisenberry became President in 2000, there were extreme organizational and financial challenges affecting the very solvency of ESA. She provided leadership to the Governing Board and membership to re-focus on core components and services (e.g., free online journals, new editorial structure, meeting inclusiveness/innovation) and to create a "member friendly" (e.g., Town Halls) organization, while balancing the budget for the first time in years through decisive action and management practices. Her leadership served the Society well by creating the foundation for subsequent changes to ensure sustained growth of the ESA.
Ken grew up exploring nature in Delaware, and received a B.S. in biology from St. Joseph's College in Philadelphia in 1972. He then wandered about doing odd jobs, until fortuitously finding temporary positions with the U.S. Forest Service in Asheville, NC during the summers of 1973 and 1974. Experiences with aerial sketch-mapping and ground-truthing outbreaks spurred his love of forest entomology. He received an M.S. in entomology from the University of Delaware studying biological control of gypsy moth, and a Ph.D. from Washington State University studying conifer-bark beetle interactions. Ken was a research entomologist for DuPont from 1981-1985, helping to develop strategies for delaying insecticide resistance and incorporating plant-insect interactions into agricultural crop protection. Ken joined UW in 1985.
During the course of his career, Ken has collaborated with outstanding scholars from a diverse array of disciplines. These joint studies have helped improve our understanding of the complex and often subtle roles that insects play in the health of forest ecosystems, and helped devise management practices when external forces or human interests place our goals in conflict. Ken has served on numerous state and federal agency committees, many dealing with invasive species. He has received several honors, such as the Silverstein-Simeone Lecture of the International Society of Chemical Ecology, the Spitze Land Grant Faculty Award, the Beers-Bascom Professorship in Conservation, and the ESA Comstock Award.
Ken teaches classes in plant-insect interactions, forest protection, and scientific presentations. His proudest contribution is his role in the training of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral associates who have gone on to successful and fulfilling careers. Many of them are now providing strong leadership in academia, government, and industry.
Marlin has given 707 presentations at field days and short courses, authored 105 extension and 85 refereed publications, written nearly 750 newsletter articles, and co-authored with Larry Pedigo two editions of Entomology and Pest Management. He was executive editor of Integrated Crop Management, which he transformed into the first full-color, weekly, crop-focused, print newsletter in the nation published by a land-grant university. Later, the newsletter was posted open-access on the Internet, and during 2007 it received 1,084,237 page views. In 2006 he recorded BugCasts—the first series of podcasts on insects and their management. His perspectives on Iowa agriculture have been quoted in the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and numerous farming magazines. He co-founded with Kevin Steffey the Journal of Integrated Pest Management—the first peer-reviewed, Internet open-access, extension-based, pest management journal.
He received his M.S. from the University of Missouri and his Ph.D. from Kansas State University. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Zimbabwe, and has served as ESA Governing Board Representative, Secretary-Treasurer, and President.
Dr. Debboun has worked in public-health and preventive-medicine operations, research and development of arthropod repellents, and personal protective measures. His assignments and fieldwork took him to over 22 countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America. His main goal is the integration of medical entomology with other operational public-health fields to provide efficient and sustainable management of disease vectors and troop protection from vector-borne disease threats.
Dr. Debboun became a board certified medical and veterinary entomologist in 1991. Since then, he has served as proctor for BCE examinations, a member of the BCE Examining Committee, and as an ad hoc military liaison where he is actively promoting and recruiting new members for ESA's Certification Program within our armed forces. He served as the Army's Pest Management Certification Official and as Vice-Chairman of the Education and Training Committees of the Armed Forces Pest Management Board. He has authored or co-authored over 65 peer-reviewed publications and two books: Insect Repellents: Principles, Methods and Uses and Prevention of Bug Bites, Stings, and Disease. He also organizes ESA symposia, serves on five journal editorial boards, is a scientific reviewer for six peer-reviewed journals, and is the 2010 Chair of ESA's International Affairs Committee.
Dr. Debboun is nationally and internationally recognized for his work on arthropod repellent research and development. His professional awards include the Agricultural Research Service Award (2002), the Order of Military Medical Merit (2003), and the Surgeon General's "A" Professional Proficiency Designator for expertise in Medical & Veterinary Entomology (2003).
Recognition Award in Entomology—Sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection, this award recognizes entomologists who are making significant contributions to agriculture. Dr. C. Michael Smith, a professor of entomology at Kansas State University, was born and raised in Oklahoma and is a Cherokee Indian Nation citizen. He received his B.S. in biology at Southwestern Oklahoma State Unversity, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in entomology from Mississippi State University. Following a postdoc at North Carolina State University and faculty appointments at Louisiana State University and the Univerity of Idaho, he has served as professor of entomology at Kansas State University since 1990. Smith's K-State research group has identified numerous genes in barley and wheat plants resistant to Diuraphis noxia and established that transcriptomes of resistant plants are expressed more rapidly and at higher levels than those of susceptible plants. A putative D. noxia resistance gene in wheat was recently silenced using virus-induced gene silencing. As a Fulbright scholar, Smith's collaborations with European and African scientists identified the first Diuraphis noxia biotypes in North Africa and South America. Recent research by Smith's group has revealed evidence of a second D. noxia North American invasion in 2004. Smith has served as Chair of former ESA Section Fa and as the Section F Governing Board Representative, and he was designated an ESA Fellow in 2006. He is currently a subject editor for Journal of Economic Entomology, a founding editor of Arthopod Plant Interactions, and author of three host plant resistance textbooks, the most recent being Plant Resistance to Arthropods: Molecular and Conventional Approaches. Smith is married to Rita Reid Smith (RPh). They have two daughters: Dr. Segen Smith Chase (internal medicine) and Dr. Sonder Smith Crane (pediatrics).