The Entomological Foundation's 2004 Awards:
Jeffery LaFage Graduate Student Research Award
This grant of up
to $900 encourages research by graduate students in the field of the biology
and control of termites or other insect pests of the urban environment.
Established as a tribute to the late Jeffery P. LaFage, a professor of urban
entomology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge who specialized in the
study of the biology and control of termites. For nearly 10 years before his
death, his research activities involved studies of the Formosan subterranean
termite and methods of applying this knowledge to the management of this
introduced termite.
Marc
Fisher, a Ph.D. Candidate in Entomology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University, received his M.S. degree in Entomology at Texas A&M University
and his B.S. degree in Biology at Brigham Young University. His research project
titled Identification of Termite Gut Symbiotic Bacteria and the Development
of Species Specific Oligonucleotide Probes will be used with local
subterranean termites with the goal to then use the data to develop probes for
comparing specific bacteria in termites from different geographic regions within
the United States. He has five refereed and four non-refereed publications to
his name.