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Penn State Entomology Professor Awarded Emerald Honor - September 2005

September 20, 2005

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Dr. Consuelo De Moraes, assistant professor of entomology at Penn State, was recently presented an Emerald Honors award at the Minorities in Research Sciences conference, held at the Baltimore Convention Center on September 17.

Dr. De Moraes was named a Special Recognition Honoree for her work in the research on the chemical relationships between plants and insects.

The Emerald Honors are the premier awards for Blacks, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans working in the research sciences. Exceptionally talented minorities from a broad range of scientific fields are recognized each year for stellar achievement. In addition to being recognized at the ceremony, this year's award recipients will also be featured in Science Spectrum magazine. "Multicultural communities are where the action is in finding, preparing, and recruiting a new generation of science researchers in the U.S.," says Dr. Tyrone D. Taborn, editor-in-chief of Science Spectrum magazine and CEO of Career Communications Group, producers of the Minorities in Research Science conference.

Dr. De Moraes says she is excited to win one of the prestigious awards after being nominated by Dr. Gary Felton, department head of entomology at Penn State. "Many of the other winners are researchers in the medical field, so the award came as a surprise to me," she says.

Dr. 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 Dr. De Moraes, they are also important location cues for other insects that are natural enemies of the pests.

"I discovered that these chemical signals are keyed to individual pests and that natural enemies of the pests, such as parasitic wasps, exploit the signals to locate them," she explains. "Subsequently, I found that these signals differ from day to night and that pest female moths utilize nighttime signals when choosing plants on which to lay eggs."

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. Dr. De Moraes' continued research may someday be applied to the development of new agricultural techniques and crop varieties that could enhance plant resistance to pests.

Dr. De Moraes also a 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 in 2003. De Moraes received the award after she was chosen by Penn State President Graham Spanier to be one of two professors nominated from the university.

Dr. 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 Dr. De Moraes at (814) 863-2867 or by e-mail at czd10@psu.edu.

For more information on the Emerald Honors Awards and the Minorities in Research Science Conference, visit Web site www.ccgmag.com/emerald or call (410) 244-7101.

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. 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.