Entomology

When your field of study includes 800,000 biologically diverse insect species, the challenges are endless. Graduates of the state's only master's and doctorate programs in entomology improve the lives of people and the health of the environment by developing integrated pest management systems, breeding pest-resistant plants, tackling emerging pollination issues, and battling insect-borne diseases here and abroad.

As a student in the program, you’ll learn how to design, conduct and analyze experiments in a progressive interdisciplinary environment – teasing out insects’ surprising roles in crop-insect-virus interactions, for example, or building an understanding of their unique contributions to sustainable environments.

The program provides foundations in insect systematics and biodiversity, ecology, physiology and pest management. You'll study topics in insect-plant interactions, host plant resistance to insects and pathogens, and insect chemical ecology. You may also explore areas in ecology, biochemistry, plant pathology, statistical analysis, experimental design and other fields.

Whether you’re planning a career in private industry, government, nonprofit organizations or academia, you’ll develop the scientific skills and research experience for leadership roles.

With a 2:1 student-to-faculty ratio, our students are accepted as research partners. In addition to your novel thesis or dissertation research – typically conducted in collaboration with your adviser – you can broaden your research opportunities by working closely with other faculty in state-of-the-art greenhouses and laboratories, off-campus research facilities, and cooperating growers’ fields statewide. You can even take classes and conduct research across state lines in Washington State University’s fields and facilities. And, when you’re ready to report your research, we’ll support your participation in professional meetings nationally.

Idaho's rain fed environments and irrigated and dryland fields give you the opportunity to test your thesis hypothesis across diverse conditions or cropping systems.

Prepare for Success

Our successful students are focused, persevering and committed to helping people and the environment. They share a strong interest in at least one facet of entomology and an attraction to teaching, research and/or outreach. They’ve earned bachelor’s degrees in entomology, biology, fisheries, ecology and many other areas – including English. Along the way, they’ve developed analytical, critical thinking, computer, and communication (written and verbal) skills.

Your First Year

Tailor your study plan to your specific professional goals. During your first semester, we’ll consult with you and your adviser before assembling either a three-member (master's) or four-member (doctorate) graduate committee, which may include faculty members from both the University of Idaho and Washington State University. This committee first assesses your background, interests and goals, then defines a study plan.

See our Entomology Graduate Handbook for details.

What You Can Do

With an advanced degree in entomology, you may pursue a variety of career options. Potential job titles include:

• Agricultural or urban pest manager
• Director of pesticide development for an agrichemical firm
• Environmental consultant
• University professor, research support scientist or extension educator
• Senior scientist or program leader for a federal or state agriculture, land management, or health agency
• World health research scientist
• Federal livestock entomologist

Opportunities

With a national shortage of graduates in the hard sciences, our students are in demand. One hundred percent of our graduates find work in their fields – primarily for agricultural and agrichemical industries, public land management or health agencies, nonprofit environmental or health organizations, and universities and colleges. Graduates with a master's degree generally will see starting salaries in the $35,000-$50,000 range, while doctoral graduates typically find positions with salaries beginning between $65,000-$75,000 in academia or $80,000 in private industry.

Current Research

Engage with our faculty as they investigate these and other intriguing issues:

• Role of chemicals emitted by crops in attracting the aphids that transmit potato leaf roll virus and barley yellow dwarf virus
• Effectiveness of insects in controlling such invasive weeds as hoary cress
• Use of oilseed meals – byproducts that enhance the economics of biodiesel production – for the control of soil-dwelling crop pests
• Utilization of trap crops and repellents to manage insects in organic vegetable production
• How cultural methods and improved forecasting can predict and minimize the risks of plant virus transmission by aphids
• The mating behavior of female mosquitoes and how these processes help manage the diseases they spread
• How insect-resistant wheat varieties complement biocontrol agents
• Effects of various sizes of Palouse habitat remnants on the diversity of native insects

Activities

Aldrich Entomology Club : Share your fascination with insects with local elementary schoolchildren, explore insect and plant interactions in the field, and participate in the Entomological Society of America’s annual Linnaean Games Competition.

Graduate and Professional Student Association: Gain leadership, organizational and communication skills.

Hands-On Experience

Learn to wield sweep nets and set pitfall traps, as well as to employ state-of-the-art techniques such as polymerase chain reactions to find out if an aphid is carrying a crop-damaging virus.  Utilize gas chromatography to study the chemicals that insects emit to attract the opposite sex. 

You may also participate in interdisciplinary programs in Environmental Science, Biological Sciences and the Center for Research on Invasive Species and Small Populations.

In addition to your research, many of our students engage in outreach efforts with agricultural producers, commodity commissions and other groups that are tackling issues in which insects play key roles. If you’re interested in applied entomology, you’ll make public presentations, write grants (Ph.D. students), and get other valuable experience in land grant extension activities.

Breakthroughs & Discoveries

Graduate students contributed to each of these recent scientific advances made by our professors:

• A new subdiscipline of chemical ecology, called disease chemical ecology, was launched after our scientists confirmed that potato plants infected with potato leaf roll virus emit chemicals that attract the very aphids that transmit the disease from plant to plant.
• Green peach aphids prefer hairy nightshade – a weed – over potato crops. When these aphids visit hairy nightshade early in the season, they’re particularly likely to transmit potato leaf roll virus to the potatoes they later infest, making control of hairy nightshade more critical than anyone had previously thought.
• To maximize their reproductive success, female mosquitoes minimize their exposure to swatting by waiting until after they’ve been inseminated to seek the blood meals that are essential to egg development.
• Oilseed meals – byproducts of biodiesel production – show substantial promise as bioinsecticides that can control soil dwelling pests with less risk to the environment than synthetic chemicals. Our interdisciplinary team has learned that these meals also add nitrogen and other nutrients to cropping systems and crucial income to the bottom lines of crushing plants.

Facilities

Our new biotech wing allows students to use modern molecular techniques in entomological research, while the Hubert C. Manis Laboratory offers isolated greenhouses for working with insects. The million-specimen William F. Barr Entomology Museum includes an outstanding selection of Western – particularly agricultural pests and wood-boring beetles – that students can examine at various life stages.