Speaker Bios

Mary Gardiner, OSU Department of Entomology

Dr. Mary M. Gardiner received her Ph.D. in 2008 from Michigan State University and is currently a Professor in the Department of Entomology at The Ohio State University. Her research program focuses on the ecological value of urban vacant land. This work is funded by the NSF and USDA NIFA and concentrated in Cleveland, Ohio – a city that has experienced significant economic and population decline. Cleveland currently contains 27,000 vacant lots encompassing approximately 4,000 acres of land. The Gardiner Lab examines how alternative vegetation designs and management regimes influence the value of vacant land for the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services. Mary is also a State Specialist in Extension and works with several stakeholder groups including home gardeners, Master Gardeners, Master Naturalists, and adult and youth citizen scientists.

Reed Johnson, OSU Department of Entomology

Reed got his start in research beekeeping while looking for a summer job in his hometown,  Missoula, Montana.  He knocked on the door of Dr. Jerry Bromenshenk at the University of Montana, was offered employment, and was quickly drawn into the world of bees and their biology.  Reed went on to receive a Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign working with Dr. May Berenbaum where he was involved in the honey bee genome project.  Reed then moved on to a post-doc position at the University of Nebraska with Dr. Marion Ellis where he explored drug interactions between miticides in bees.   Reed is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Entomology at The Ohio State University in Wooster, Ohio.  He teaches two courses at Ohio State: one on the biology and practical aspects of beekeeping and other on pesticide toxicology and application.  His research focuses on determining how bees are exposed to pesticides and measuring the effect that toxic exposure has on the health of honey bees with the goal of promoting bee health in the context of modern agriculture.

Ashley Kulhanek, OSU Extension Medina County

Ashley serves as the Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension Educator in Medina County, a position she has held since 2013. She earned her Master’s of Science in Entomology at OSU and worked as a Program Coordinator for the Good Agricultural Practices Team at OSU’s Ohio Agricultural Research Development Center (OARDC) in Wooster before moving to Medina. Among other programs, Ashley coordinates the Master Gardener program and Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalists program in Medina County.

Gretchen LeBuhn, San Francisco State University

Gretchen is a professor of Biology at San Francisco State University and the director of Great Sunflower Project, the largest citizen science project focused on pollinators in the world. It is specifically designed to evaluate the effects of landscape change on pollinator service in North America and to provide tools for participants to take conservation actions. Her lab focuses on the effects of anthropogenic change on plant and animal communities from local to continental scales. They are currently working on the effect of wildfire on pollinator communities, the impacts of climate warming on urban pollinators and the montane meadow pollinators.

Jeni Ruisch, OSU Department of Entomology

Jeni is a graduate of the Ohio Sate University, with a background in human and animal cognition and behavior. She has nearly 20 years of experience in working with exotic animals in captivity, from primates and parrots, to reptiles and fish. She is currently a director of outreach and academic programming for the entomology department at the Ohio State University, where she keeps a collection of arthropods for use in science outreach with people of all ages.

Dave Shetlar, OSU Department of Entomology

Dr. David Shetlar is a Professor Emeritus of Urban Landscape Entomology at The Ohio State University. He performs outreach education on turf and ornamental entomology and related topics, assists in departmental teaching efforts and concentrates on turfgrass entomology research.

Dr. Shetlar earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Zoology from the University of Oklahoma and his Doctorate in Entomology from Penn State. He was a professor at Penn State from 1977 to 1983, a Research Scientist with Chemlawn Services from 1984 to 1990 and he joined Ohio State in May, 1990 and became an Emeritus Professor in June 2017.

Dr. Shetlar goes by the professional nickname of The BugDoc. He has coauthored several books on turfgrass insects and has a long list of research and outreach publications. His most recent publication effort was to revise Garden Insects of North America, 2nd edition with Whitney Cranshaw, a professor at Colorado State University.

Sarah Short, OSU Department of Entomology

Sarah is originally from Willoughby, Ohio. She attended Xavier University in Cincinnati as an undergraduate where she received a B.S. in Biology. She then went on to earn her Ph.D. in Genetics and Development at Cornell University in the laboratory of Dr. Brian Lazzaro, and continued her training as a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University with Dr. George Dimopoulos. Dr. Short joined the Department of Entomology at OSU in August, 2018. Her lab studies disease vector mosquitoes and their interactions with environmental bacteria.

MaLisa Spring, OSU Museum of Biological Diversity

MaLisa graduated from The Ohio State University with a Master’s of Science in Entomology and Marietta College with a Bachelor’s of Science in Biology. She has worked on many research projects including urban pollinator habitat management, bee richness and floral use, lady beetle diversity, mangrove restoration in abandoned shrimp farms, and insect diversity in the tropics among many others. Now she is the State Coordinator for the Ohio Dragonfly Survey.

Katie Turo, OSU Department of Entomology

Katie Turo is a PhD student and National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellow at the Ohio State Entomology Department. She has worked extensively studying pollinators in prairies, apple orchards, and sunflower crops at several universities around the United States. Currently, her dissertation work focuses on the conservation of native pollinators in urban Cleveland, OH, where she’s studied bee nesting, foraging, and distribution patterns throughout the city. Katie is also the author of three 4-H project books— Insect Adventures 1,2,3— which are great introductions for youth interested in studying insects. Books and Videos are available at: https://ohio4h.org/insects.

Jerome (Jerry) Wiedmann

Jerry has a BA in chemistry and a PhD in analytical chemistry from Iowa State. He retired in 2016 with
45 years of experience designing and conducting environmental fate studies for the registration of pesticides with EPA and PMRA (Canada). He has a lifelong interest in butterflies and other insects.
Currently Jerry serves as Vice President of The Ohio Lepidopterists, Chairman of the Butterfly Monitoring Project and Ohio Editor for the North American Butterfly Association July 4 butterfly counts.

 

Danae Wolfe

Danae Wolfe is a digital engagement specialist with Ohio State University Extension. She has over 10 years’ experience designing and facilitating learning opportunities that span natural resources, horticulture, digital engagement, leadership, and her personal passion of photography. She was invited to speak at TEDxColumbus 2018 on the power of photography in fostering appreciation and conservation of insects and spiders and her talk has since been promoted to TED.com.