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At least for some insects in Illinois, the 2025-2026 academic year was a good one; the number of state-threatened and state-endangered bee species gaining legal protection, for example, increased to 12, up from one (the rusty patched bumble bee Bombus affinis) in 2017. In fact, in 2026, Governor JB Pritzker signed legislation establishing Bombus auricomus, the black and gold bumble bee, as the Illinois State Bee, which is appropriate given that it can be found throughout the state, including in UIUC's Trelease Woods and Meadowbrook Park. 

In terms of administrative news, May Berenbaum completed her 34^th year as Head of Entomology, breaking records both for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Illinois and for departments of entomology nationwide (narrowly surpassing the record set by Edith Patch, department head at University of Maine from 1904 to 1937). Not coincidentally, scheduled for the November 2026 Entomological Society of America meeting in Columbus, Ohio, a symposium marking that anniversary is taking place; look in your program book for "What’s the Buzz? An Entomological History of May Berenbaum’s 34 Years of Service as Department Head." Sincere thanks to Brian Allan and Andy Suarez for organizing the symposium (and, if you're wondering, May was the inspiration for, but not the source of, the pun in the title). As well, sincere thanks to Brian for serving as Acting Head this past year and for taking on the role of Department Head starting in August! 

Speaking of campus leadership, this year Gene Robinson completed a historic run as Director of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (since 2001) and was recently appointed as the new Director and CEO of the Discovery Partners Institute in Chicago. May Berenbaum's run as Director of the Center for Advanced Study is barely beginning by comparison—as of April 1, she has been Director for only five years (the record to beat is held by linguistics Ladislav Zgusta, Director of CAS from 1986 to1996). In terms of noteworthy department visitors, Adam Dolezal, Alex Harmon-Threatt, and Gene Robinson hosted a visit by U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin to discuss critical bee research at the University of Illinois and to sample local honey from the bee lab. By the way, if you're keeping track of political power wielded by bees nationally, within the ranks of the current House of Representatives is Democratic Representative Jim Hines of the fourth Congressional district of Connecticut, an avid beekeeper.

In terms of faculty achievements, Esther Ngumbi was promoted from assistant professor to associate professor with indefinite tenure and Alex Harmon-Threatt was promoted from associate professor to professor. We gained a new assistant professor—Matt Doremus joined our faculty in 2025, after receiving a PhD degree from the University of Arizona and a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Kentucky. His research on arthropod-microbe symbioses continues a long tradition of departmental research, dating back to 1992, with Hugh Robertson's pioneering work on cytoplasmic incompatibility (e.g., O'Neill et al. 1992, https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.89.7.2699). 

Our faculty, students, and alumni continue to receive awards and recognition of all sorts. Adam Dolezal received the Pioneer Award from the Illinois State Beekeepers Association, designed "to recognize individuals or entities which have through their actions have contributed to and supported beekeeping in the health and well-being of honey bees through research, advancement of methods, technology and sharing of knowledge." In 2025, Andy Suarez, Jeffrey S. Elowe Professor of Integrative Biology and Illinois entomology department faculty member, received multiple honors—election as Fellow of the Entomological Society of America and recipient of the Distinguished Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists. Brian Allan was inducted into Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society, joining faculty alumni Sydney Cameron and Jim Whitfield and current faculty members Gene Robinson, Esther Ngumbi, Andy Suarez, Joe Zhou, and May Berenbaum. May received the Wigglesworth Memorial Lecture and Award from the Royal Entomological Society (presented at the 2025 meeting in Glasgow) and joined Charles Darwin as one of the signers of the Society's Obligations book. Gene Robinson was honored with the Campus Award for Excellence in Faculty Leadership and was inducted into the American Philosophical Society, the oldest learned society in the United States, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743. 

Joining faculty in receiving recognition, the Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) collectively received the Campus Award for Excellence in Public Engagement for a student team. EGSA of course is responsible for the lion's share (or should that be antlion's share?) of work involved in holding our annual Insect Fear Film Festival (about to enter its 44th year in February 2027). EGSA, by the way, in the past two years sent teams to the EntSoc Entomology Games, formerly known as the Linnaean Games, and, with the help of faculty coach Matt Doremus, managed to score historic victories—first place in the North Central Branch competition in both 2025 and 2026 and third place in the 2025 National Game. If this team places first in the 2026 National Game, it will be the first time since 2009 that the University of Illinois has taken home the top prize.

We're looking forward to seeing alumni and friends of Illinois Entomology at the Entomological Society of America meeting in Columbus, Ohio this November, not just at the mixer but also at the “What’s the Buzz?" symposium! 

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The Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior (EEB) had a productive year. Despite recent disruptions to science funding, faculty and students remain united in their desire to understand the relationship between environmental change and its impact on organisms across ecological and evolutionary timescales.

We are also delighted to welcome three new faculty to EEB this year. Eric Gulson-Castillo and Teresa Pegan join us this August, both coming from postdoctoral positions studying bird migration. Eric studies the sensory basis of bird migration, including magnetoreception. Teresa studies the genomic and life history consequences of long-distance migration in songbirds. Brent Hawkins joins us in January from a postdoctoral fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Brent uses zebrafish to uncover the developmental genetic mechanisms behind major evolutionary transitions in vertebrate anatomy, including work showing that zebrafish fins retain a latent capacity to develop limb-like bones. Together, they bring exciting new strength in sensory ecology, genomics, and evolutionary development to our department. We also welcomed six new incoming graduate students for Fall 2026, a strong cohort given that enrollments were down across much of the country this year.

Our other big news is that Dr. Tigga Kingston was formally invested this year as the inaugural Shelford-Pitelka-Batzli Professor in Mammalian Ecology, a named professorship generously endowed by Dr. George Batzli and his family. Tigga is a global leader in bat conservation. She founded and directs the Southeast Asian Bat Conservation Research Unit, helped found the Global Union of Bat Diversity Networks, and chairs the Old World component of the IUCN Species Survival Commission for bats. In 2023, a newly discovered bat species, Hipposideros kingstonae, was named in her honor. Her investiture also drew attention to the legacy behind her professorship’s name: Victor E. Shelford, the father of modern ecology and founder of both the Ecological Society of America and what became The Nature Conservancy. Victor Shelford was a former EEB professor, and his spirit of rigorous field biology was very much present in the room. Tigga also received a Fulbright this year to continue her research on bats in Southeast Asia.

It was also a year of strong recognition for our faculty.

• Dr. Julian Catchen received an LAS Conrad Professorial Scholar Award. Julian developed and maintains Stacks, a widely used software package for population genomics from RAD sequencing data, and his lab combines this bioinformatics expertise with research on fish genome evolution.
• I had the honor of serving as President of the American Society of Naturalists. In my presidential address, I discussed 20+ years of research on sensory drive in killifish and reminded everyone that Sewall Wright, one of the architects of the modern synthesis, received his M.S. from our department at the University of Illinois. 

EEB continues to thrive as a dynamic and supportive community. Our weekly EEB Colloquium remains a central gathering point. Every Friday at 9:00 a.m., we meet to share bagels, coffee, and cutting-edge science from students, faculty, and guests from across academia, government, NGOs, and industry. Our motto remains: good things happen when we talk to one another.

Thank you for your continued support. Please stop by if you’re in town—everyone is always welcome at the EEB Colloquium.

Sincerely,

Becky Fuller
Professor and Head
Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior

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The 2025/26 academic year asked a great deal of us, but as always our staff, students, postdocs, and faculty rose to meet it. We saw extraordinary recognition for our science, made discoveries across the breadth of plant biology, and said goodbye to one of the towering figures of our field who was a close mentor and friend to many in our department.

This was a banner year for photosynthesis and plant physiology research, a strength that has defined Plant Biology at Illinois for generations. Professor Tracy Lawson and Professor Emeritus Donald Ort were both named to the 2025 Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers list, recognizing scientists whose work ranks among the top 1% by citation worldwide. Lawson and Professor Emeritus Govindjee were also ranked among the world’s top seven photosynthesis scholars of the past five years. And Professor Andrew Leakey’s leadership in bioenergy and development of bioenergy grass miscanthus drew national attention, including a feature in the Chicago Tribune.

It is alongside that same recognition that we mourn the passing of Dr. Stephen P. Long in September, a pioneer of photosynthesis research and engineering photosynthesis to feed the world. His intellect and generosity shaped this department and our discipline for a long time, and his absence is felt daily. In November, colleagues, collaborators, and mentees from around the world gathered to celebrate his life and legacy.

There was much to celebrate among our colleagues as well. Assistant Professor Steven Burgess was named a Lincoln Excellence for Assistant Professors (LEAP) Scholar by the College of LAS, recognition of an early-career researcher and teacher already making an outsized mark. We were also thrilled that Heather Lash, Assistant Director of Controlled Environment Facilities, received an LAS Academic Professional Award for her amazing work leading our plant growth facilities.

Our discoveries this year spanned the full sweep of plant biology. Assistant Professor Ya Min (Minya) revealed new principles for how flowers grow and organize themselves, and Associate Professor Li-Qing Chen showed how plants move sugar to keep growing under stress. Assistant Professor Rose Marks traced the biology of “resurrection plants” in work that is reshaping how we understand drought tolerance.

Plant Biology trainees (undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars) are at the bench, in the field, and at the computer every day driving these discoveries while they develop their own skillsets, advance their own scientific careers, and even mentor the more junior trainees coming up behind them. I like to think of mentor-mentee relationships, our research labs, and even whole departments like symbioses where scientists of different expertise, personality traits, interests, and strengths come together to build something bigger and more profound than we could ever build alone.

Plant science has never been more essential to meeting the challenges facing humanity. Curiosity-driven research—the work of understanding the world for its own sake—builds the firm foundation of knowledge on which innovations in agriculture, the environment, and human health are raised. Those are exactly the questions we pursue every day in Plant Biology: how plants evolve, how they interact with other organisms, and how we can read and rewrite their genetics. Come visit us!

Here’s to another year of gathering data, graduating students, growing the next generation, and green things.