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Consuelo De Moraes Receives Dupont Young Professor Award - May 2006
May 4, 2006
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. --Consuelo De Moraes, assistant professor of entomology at Penn State, recently received a DuPont Young Professor Award. The grant program provides start-up assistance to the most promising young and untenured research faculty working in areas of interest to DuPont.
De Moraes' research focuses on the chemical communication of plants and the defensive responses of plants to insect feeding. When attacked by insect pests, plants release complex blends of airborne chemicals with odor molecules that can be interpreted by insects as warning messages, distress signals and invitations. According to De Moraes, they are also important location cues for other insects that are natural enemies of the pests.
The discovery that plants produce information-rich chemical signals in response to specific environmental stimuli holds potential for technological advances in both agriculture and environmental sensing. De Moraes' continued research might someday be applied to the development of new agricultural techniques and crop varieties that could enhance plant resistance to pests.
According to a news release, DuPont has given over 500 Young Professor Awards since 1968. Many past award recipients have gone on to gain significant recognition in their chosen field from their scientific peers and colleagues. Each faculty member must be nominated by a member of the DuPont technical staff who agrees to serve as the liaison between the company and the faculty member. The decision for making the awards resides with the DuPont Fellows Forum, which includes the top scientists in the company.
"The DuPont Young Professor award program is an excellent way for DuPont to create lasting relationships with future academic scientists who can provide the company with unique perspectives on technological challenges, further aiding our R&D process," said Chris Hollinsed, manager of DuPont Academic Programs.
In 2003, De Moraes became the first entomologist -- and the first faculty member in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences -- to win a David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering.
De Moraes received her bachelor's degree in ecology in 1992 from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil. In 1998, she earned a doctoral degree in entomology from the University of Georgia. She joined Penn State's department of entomology in 2001. For more information on her work, contact De Moraes at (814) 863-2867 or by e-mail at czd10@psu.edu.
Established in 1963, Penn State’s Department of Entomology has grown into a well-balanced department providing undergraduate education, graduate student training and extension outreach education focusing on both domestic and international issues. Twenty faculty and more than thirty graduate students work on a variety of research topics providing insights into insect ecology, behavior and molecular biology as well as integrated pest management. The department is part of Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. For more information about solving insect problems, descriptions of research and education programs or admission to the graduate program, visit Web site at http://www.ento.psu.edu/ or contact the department at (814) 865-1895.