UC Riverside faculty member joins elite group of entomologists

July 29th, 2010

For his outstanding contributions to entomology, Thomas Miller, a professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside, has been elected a fellow of the prestigious Entomological Society of America, the largest organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines.

This year, Miller and only nine others were elected to this honor. They will be recognized at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America in San Diego, Calif., in December 2010.

Miller got his Ph.D. in 1967 at UC Riverside. He worked as a research associate at the University of Illinois and as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at Glasgow University. He then returned to UC Riverside in 1969, where he has taught ever since.

His research has included structure and function of the insect circulatory system; mode of action of insecticides; insect neuromuscular physiology; physiology, toxicology and behavior of pink bollworm in cotton fields; transgenic insects; and applied symbiosis for crop protection and biopesticides for crop protection. His university teaching includes insect physiology, insect toxicology and first year biology.

Current projects include control of bush cricket pests of oil palm trees in Papua New Guinea, oversight of field trials of transgenic grapevines with resistance to Pierce's disease, biotechnology for control of desert locust, and regulatory control of insect transgenic technologies.

In 2003 he was awarded the Gregor J. Mendel Medal for Research in Biological Sciences by the Czech Academy of Sciences, in 2005 he was invited to give the Verrall Lecture at the Royal Entomological Society, and this summer he is taking a one-year appointment as a Jefferson Science Fellow at the US State Department.

"It is a great honor to be named a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America, one I now share with my major professor, Robert L. Metcalf from UCR and a growing number of other recipients from the UCR Entomology Department," Miller said. "My graduate students who contributed to this award are now directors of institutes, distinguished professors and senior scientists in industry. I am very proud of all of them and am humbled to represent them as well."

Provided by University of California - Riverside