My interest and training in insect ecology and integrated pest management have led me to conduct research on several insects of economic importance. During a post-doc with Dr. Jack E. Coster in the College of Forestry, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX, I did research on the disperal of the southern pine beetle.

After joining the faculty in the Department of Entomology at the University of New Hampshire in 1979, I shifted my research to apple maggot fly dispersal in apple orchards, as well as supervising graduate research on a variety of other apple pests.

In 1980, a project on the relationship of gypsy moth egg hatch to degree-day accumulation conducted with graduate students in my Insect Ecology course led to an interest in the gypsy moth in general and prompted several years of research in cooperation with Dr. R. Marcel Reeves on the impact of ground beetle predators on gypsy moth larvae. This involved the use of the biological tag rubidium and its transfer from larvae fed on Rb-enriched diet to the predators that fed on them. While involved in this research, I continued to refine the gypsy egg hatch model (unpublished data).

My current research involves development of a mesoscale model of gypsy moth egg hatch for New Hampshire. It was prompted by a series of such mesoscale models developed in the southern United States that incorporated my earlier work and which seemed to have some utility in predicting egg hatch over a varied terrain. For the details of my current project, visit Current Research, and for a publications list visit Publications.