Charles Valentine Riley was the first appointed state entomologist of Missouri in 1868. He served as a non-resident professor and lecturer with the University of Missouri from 1869-1875. C. V. Riley has been called “the father of biological control”. He famously introduced beetle predators to control populations of the cottony cushion scale that were destroying the California citrus industry. Riley is also known for saving the French wine industry in the late 1800’s, which was being decimated by the insect, grape phylloxera. The University of Missouri awarded C. V. Riley an honorary Ph.D in 1873.
Previous Speakers
2019 – Marla Spivak, University of Minnesota, “Socialized Medicine in Honey Bee Colonies”
2018 – Jared Ali, Pennsylvania State University, “Plant Defense and Multi-trophic Chemical Ecology: Tales of plant interactions with the animals that want to eat them”
2017 – Tracey Leskey, USDA-ARS, “Combating invasive species in agriculture with behaviorally-based management tactics: the story of the brown marmorated stink bug”
2016 – Micky Eubanks, Texas A&M University, “Ants, plants, and bugs: Community-wide consequences of mutualisms involving honeydewproducing insects”
2015 – Michael Engel, University of Kansas, “Entomology: 400 Million Years on Six Legs: Evolution of the Insects”
2014 – Silvia Dorn, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich, “Insect-plant interactions: from field to behavioral and molecular levels”
2013 – Rebeca Rosengaus, Northeastern University, “Insect Sociobiology: The role of microbes on the evolution of social immunity: disease resistance at the colony level”
2012 – Gina Wimp, Georgetown University, “Arthropod Community Structure: Plant genetic drivers of arthropod community structure: The predictability of a community genetics approach to conservation”
2011 – Nick Haddad, North Carolina State University, “Insect Conservation: Landscape approaches to Insect Conservation”
2010 – Richard Merritt, Michigan State University, “Forensic Entomology: Bugs and Bodies: The role of insects in crime scene investigation”
2009 – Bruce Tabashnik, University of Arizona, “Insecticide Resistance: Insect Resistance to Transgenic Crops: Evidence vs. Theory”
2008 – James Truman, Janelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “Insect Physiology: Neuronal Stem Cells: their role in the development, functioning and evolution of the insect nervous system”
2007 – Ted Turlings, University of Neuchatel “Insect-Plant Interactions: Exploiting scents of distress: herbivore-induced plant odors and the prospects of using them to control agricultural pests.”
2006 – Diane Davidson, University of Utah “Insect Ecology: The Evolutionary Ecology of Borneo’s exploding ants: exploring possible links among plants, fungi and carpenter ants.”
2005 – Walter Tabachnick, University of Florida
Anthony James, University of California-Irvine
2004 – Ernest Delfosse, USDA-ARS, Beltsville, MD, “Biological Control: Risk Analysis and Biological Control of Weeds: can we predict ecological host ranges?”
Michael J. Adang, University of Georgia, “Biological Control: Adaptation Strategies in Bt-Resistant Insects: case studies on cotton insects”
2002 – Douglas A. Landis, Michigan State University, “Integrated Pest Management: Landscape Ecology & IPM: designing agricultural landscapes for ecological pest management”
Miguel A. Altieri, University of California-Berkeley, “Integrated Pest Management: Agroecology & Biodiversity: key concepts for the development of ecologically based pest management”
2001 – Robert Hedlund, USAID, Washington, D.C. “Entomology in Developing Countries: Entomology’s Importance to 800 Million Hungry People” Jeff Waage, CABI Bioscience, United Kingdom “Entomology’s Empowerment and International Development”
2000 – Lincoln P. Brower, Sweet Briar College, “Insect Behavior: The Grand Saga of the Monarch Butterfly”
Ronald Prokopy, University of Massachusetts, “Insect Behavior: Red, Round and Ripe: A Journey into the Life and Love of Apple Maggot Flies”
1999 – Insects and Human Health
Bernard Greenberg, University of Illinois-Chicago
“Maggots and Murder: Flies as Forensic Indicators
James H. Oliver, Jr., Georgia Southern University
“Ticks-Spirochetes-Hosts Interrelationships in Lyme Disease”
1998 – Insect Biodiversity
Terry Erwin, Smithsonian Institution
“Global Human Expansion and Diminishing Biodiversity”
1997 – Tritrophic Interactions: Plant, Insect, Natural Enemy
Ian Baldwin, State University of New York Buffalo
“Apparency and Defense in Plant Insect Interactions”
Brad Vinson, Texas A&M University
“Interactions Between Parasitoid Hymenoptera and their Host: A Complex Tritrophic Web”
1996 – Novel Approaches to Insect Control
Bruce Hammock, University of California Davis
“Molecular Biology as a Tool for Developing Novel Strategies for Plant Protection”
Fred Gould, North Carolina State University
“Biological Approaches for Increasing the Sustainability of Transgenic Pesticidal Crops”
1995 – Achievements and Future of the Science of Entomology
Peter Price, Northern Arizona University
“Empirical Research and Factually Based Theory: What Are Their Roles in Entomology”
Robert Metcalf, University of Illinois
“Applied Entomology in the Twenty first Century: Needs and Prospects”
Wendell Roelofs, Cornell University
“Chemical Communication Systems in Insects”
John Casida, University of California Berkeley
“The Golden Age of Insecticide Research: Past, Present or Future”
May Berenbaum, University of Illinois
“The Image of the Entomologist (Moving and Otherwise)”
Al Fusonie, National Agricultural Library
“Missouri and France: The Charles Valentine Riley Connection”
Edward Smith, Cornell University
“C. V. Riley: The Making of the Man and His Achievements”
Richard Ridgeway, C. V. Riley Foundation
“Integrated Agriculture: The Legacy and Promise of C. V. Riley”