About The Entomologist's Echo

Staff

• Clarice Venning

  Founding Editor

  Former museum conservator who spent eleven years in the pinning room at the Natural History Museum before pivoting to journalism. Clarice covers specimen preparation, collection ethics, and taxonomy with the quiet intensity of someone who has personally re-mounted 40,000 Coleoptera. She writes like she's filing a formal complaint with the universe.

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  Former museum conservator who spent eleven years in the pinning room at the Natural History Museum before pivoting to journalism. Clarice covers specimen preparation, collection ethics, and taxonomy with the quiet intensity of someone who has personally re-mounted 40,000 Coleoptera. She writes like she's filing a formal complaint with the universe.

• Desmond Achike

  Standards Correspondent

  A former agricultural extension officer from Nigeria who covered locust outbreaks for West African wire services before joining the Echo. Desmond brings thirty years of field experience and an encyclopedic knowledge of pest management history. He writes about insects the way a retired general writes about wars — with respect for the enemy and zero patience for amateurs.

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  A former agricultural extension officer from Nigeria who covered locust outbreaks for West African wire services before joining the Echo. Desmond brings thirty years of field experience and an encyclopedic knowledge of pest management history. He writes about insects the way a retired general writes about wars — with respect for the enemy and zero patience for amateurs.

• Dr. Farah Nasseri

  Civic Affairs Desk

  A medical entomologist and contrarian who believes the field is too squeamish about its most important subject: insects that bite, sting, parasitize, and infest humans. Farah covers disease vectors, forensic entomology, and the ethics of insect control with the cheerful intensity of someone who keeps a colony of bed bugs in her office 'for reference.' She disagrees with the consensus the way other people breathe.

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  A medical entomologist and contrarian who believes the field is too squeamish about its most important subject: insects that bite, sting, parasitize, and infest humans. Farah covers disease vectors, forensic entomology, and the ethics of insect control with the cheerful intensity of someone who keeps a colony of bed bugs in her office 'for reference.' She disagrees with the consensus the way other people breathe.

• Dr. Mandible Thorax

  Culture Columnist

  Entomologist who has devoted her career to insects and her weekends to convincing people that insects are interesting.

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  Entomologist who has devoted her career to insects and her weekends to convincing people that insects are interesting.

• Gerald Fitch

  Field Reporter

  A retired USDA entomologist who has been writing the same monthly column — 'Trap Talk' — for nineteen years and sees no reason to stop. Gerald covers trapping methods, light trap design, and monitoring protocols with the steady, unsurprised cadence of a man who has identified his ten-thousandth moth and found it wanting. He has opinions about mercury vapor bulbs the way other people have opinions about religion.

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  A retired USDA entomologist who has been writing the same monthly column — 'Trap Talk' — for nineteen years and sees no reason to stop. Gerald covers trapping methods, light trap design, and monitoring protocols with the steady, unsurprised cadence of a man who has identified his ten-thousandth moth and found it wanting. He has opinions about mercury vapor bulbs the way other people have opinions about religion.

• Priya Ramasubban

  Letters Editor

  A recovering software engineer who got into entomology through macro photography and never came back. Priya covers the r/whatsthisbug beat — identification debates, misidentified viral posts, and the surprisingly vicious politics of citizen science. She writes with the energy of someone who just discovered something incredible and needs you to look at it right now.

  Read full bio

  A recovering software engineer who got into entomology through macro photography and never came back. Priya covers the r/whatsthisbug beat — identification debates, misidentified viral posts, and the surprisingly vicious politics of citizen science. She writes with the energy of someone who just discovered something incredible and needs you to look at it right now.

• Reuben Katz

  Institutional Memory Desk

  A stand-up comedian and beekeeper who stumbled into entomology journalism after a set about varroa mites went viral. Reuben covers pollinators, honey fraud, and the culture wars of beekeeping with the timing of a man who has workshopped every sentence in front of a live audience. He is the only Echo writer who has been booed at an apiculture conference.

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  A stand-up comedian and beekeeper who stumbled into entomology journalism after a set about varroa mites went viral. Reuben covers pollinators, honey fraud, and the culture wars of beekeeping with the timing of a man who has workshopped every sentence in front of a live audience. He is the only Echo writer who has been booed at an apiculture conference.

• Signe Lindqvist

  Weekend Editor

  A Swedish paleoentomologist who writes the Echo's history column, 'Amber Record.' Signe covers the deep time of insect evolution, the forgotten feuds of Victorian naturalists, and the surprisingly scandalous history of taxonomy. She treats every extinct species like a character in a novel that ended too soon.

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  A Swedish paleoentomologist who writes the Echo's history column, 'Amber Record.' Signe covers the deep time of insect evolution, the forgotten feuds of Victorian naturalists, and the surprisingly scandalous history of taxonomy. She treats every extinct species like a character in a novel that ended too soon.

• Tomás Querido

  Public Records Fellow

  A computational ecologist who left his postdoc to write about insects after his ant colony network simulation went viral on Twitter. Tomás treats myrmecology like geopolitics and every foraging trail like a supply chain crisis. His pieces come with footnotes, charts, and at least one graph nobody asked for.

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  A computational ecologist who left his postdoc to write about insects after his ant colony network simulation went viral on Twitter. Tomás treats myrmecology like geopolitics and every foraging trail like a supply chain crisis. His pieces come with footnotes, charts, and at least one graph nobody asked for.

• Wren Sato-Morrison

  Copy Chief

  A non-binary lepidopterist and illustrator who left academic fieldwork after a contentious species-splitting paper made them persona non grata in certain Lepidoptera circles. Wren covers metamorphosis, rearing techniques, and the philosophical implications of insect transformation with an artist's eye and a grudge-holder's memory.

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  A non-binary lepidopterist and illustrator who left academic fieldwork after a contentious species-splitting paper made them persona non grata in certain Lepidoptera circles. Wren covers metamorphosis, rearing techniques, and the philosophical implications of insect transformation with an artist's eye and a grudge-holder's memory.