Dong Cha

Telephone: (315) 787-2605
email: dhc28@cornell.edu

Mao Chen

Telephone: (315) 787-2453
email: mc447@cornell.edu

Cynthia (Simon) Hsu

Telephone: (315) 787-2344
email: clh33@cornell.edu

I am a postdoctoral associate working with Brian Nault. I am generally interested in insect dispersal behavior, and using our understanding of the spatial and temporal patterns of dispersal to improve pest management programs. In the past I have worked on the use of predatory mites to control spider mites in cotton; researching differences in dispersal behavior of male, mated female and virgin female obliquebanded leafrollers to understand how dispersal might explain the variable success of pheromone control programs; and, studying the dispersal of a specialist parasitoid of corn borers and how their dispersal behavior might influence the evolution of resistance to Bt-corn. Currently, my research focuses on the temporal and spatial spread of an onion virus vectored by onion thrips. The virus was identified in New York in 2006. We are in the beginning stages of determining whether the virus is re-introduced each year, is already well established, how quickly it spreads through an onion field, and whether the spatial and temporal patterns of spread within a field and at a landscape scale can help us understand the dispersal behavior of the vector, onion thrips.

Lihua Huang

Telephone: 315-787-2418
email: Lh349@cornell.edu

Rebecca Loughner

Telephone: (315) 787-2343
email: rll26@cornell.edu

I work as postdoctoral associate with Jan Nyrop.  I am specifically interested in understanding how arthropods respond to their environment and using that information to improve pest management strategies.  My current work is focused on two projects.  One is using a combination of flight tunnel assays and volatile collection techniques to identify the aggregation pheromone of the strawberry sap beetle for use in developing an attract-and-kill management strategy in strawberry.  The second is examining how leaf architecture in grapes affects retention of predaceous mites for biological control.  I am working with analysis and publication of results from experiments looking at the influence of both structure and abundance of domatia and trichomes on phytoseiid behavior, as well as designing further assays to understand interactions of leaf morphology with prey and species of phytoseiids.

Paul Robbins

Telephone: (315) 787-2471
email: psr1@cornell.edu

I am a postdoctoral fellow working with Wendell Roelofs in Entomology in Geneva and Rick Harrison in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Ithaca.  I am interested in soil insect ecology as it relates to sex pheromones and mate-finding behavior of scarab beetles whose larvae are soil-infesting pests of turf, food, and nursery crops.  I am presently investigating a unique sex pheromone polymorphism in Phyllophaga anxia, the most widely distributed species of a large genus commonly called “June bugs”.  Using mtDNA, nDNA, and microsatellites sequences, I am generating gene genealogies and analyzing allele frequencies to determine to what degree the various geographic and pheromone race populations of this species are differentiated. This study will contribute to our understanding of the evolution of pheromone communication systems and speciation.
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Jianguo (Jeff) Tan

Telephone: (315) 787-2362
email: jt386@cornell.edu

I am a postdoctoral associate working with Professor David Soderlund. The focus of the research project I am involved is to define the mechanisms of pyrethroid action on cloned rat sodium channel isoforms, to compare the actions of pyrethroids on rat and human sodium channel isoforms and to map the structural determinants of differential pyrethroid sensitivity among sodium channel isoforms by the construction, functional expression and pharmacological characterization of specifically mutated sodium channel.