Meet Andrew Sutherland, the University of California Statewide IPM Program’s urban integrated pest management advisor for the San Francisco Bay Area. He took a winding path to urban IPM that started with horticulture and involved a misunderstanding that got him into entomology. He recently worked on developing monitoring traps for biting mites; very little research has been done on managing this pest. Andrew has enjoyed being involved with major shifts to better IPM practices in urban spaces, like the switch from sprays to baits for multiple pests.

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Attack of the Mystery Mites videos

Meet Lara Amiri-Kazaz, a Ph.D. student in the field ofsustainable integrated pest management. Lara started her IPM journey hating bugs but is now loving her entomology research. A self-proclaimed “field rat,” Lara is testing if the presence of predatory insects in chile pepper fields can keep away aphids that transmit alfalfa mosaic virus. Aphids don’t stay in chile pepper fields and can give a plant the virus within minutes of feeding on it, making this a difficult pest problem to manage.

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Meet Dawn Gouge, a Medical Entomology Professor & PublicHealth IPM Specialist at the University of Arizona. She works with urban pests of all kinds, from vultures to mosquitoes to bed bugs, including biting and stinging pests that are simply “effective communicators”. Playing in the polluted Mersey Estuary as a child inspired her to make a difference in how humans live on our planet. She has recently been equipping communities to monitor mosquitoes and equipping educators to talk about extreme weather as it becomes increasingly common.

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Meet Emma Kubinski, a Ph.D. student in the field of ecological weed management. Her work in invasive weed management in natural areas led her to explore more nonchemical weed management practices in agriculture, including how weed diversity affects desirable plants. Her current work focuses on finding the critical time when weeds need to be managed in organic carrots and looking into alternate revenue streams for imperfect carrots, or “carrots with character.”

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Sample IPM Triangle (source: University of Nevada, Reno)