• Established dynamic lab with seed money from departmental, governmental, and philanthropic grants. • Identified and established new partnerships with academic and industry colleagues including establishing a long-term memorandum of understanding with Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, research teams at icipe Nairobi, Oxford University, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, University of Graz, and Biobest.• Mentored: two PhD students, two master’s students, and nine undergraduate researchers.• Reimagined and executed the graduate level introductory bioinformatics class to highlight cutting edge genomic approaches using only online resources available to all students who are learning remotely during the pandemic.• Taught: Animal Behaviour (Undergraduate), Ecology Field Course (Undergraduate), Informatics for Life Sciences (Graduate), Statistics, Insect Immunology (Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine guest lecturer; Graduate). • Associate editor for Functional Ecology and Journal of Insect Science

• Developed wet-dry lab with diverse undergraduate and graduate students from Eastern North Carolina. • Forged new collaborations with regional, national, and international research groups. • Secured seed funding for novel honeybee vaccination research.• Mentored: four undergraduate research students and one masters student.• Designed and executed a novel flipped class about the Ecology & Evolution of Infectious Disease that trained students as active participants in disease ecology research.

• Led large international genome consortium group (24 members) to analyze immune system of the crucial crop pollinators, bumblebees, resulting in high impact publications.• Designed, executed, and analyzed transcriptomic, multi-omic, and genome-wide association studies, and high-throughput targeted qPCR assays to characterize the immunology of bees.• Mentored: six undergraduate and two masters’ students resulting in student authored publications.• Taught: Field Ecology (UG), Evolutionary Ecology of Infectious Disease (G).

• Co-led large international genome consortium group (25 members) to analyze immune system of the pea aphid, a crop pest, resulting in high impact publications.• Developed research program examining life-history consequences of infection in pea aphids. • Led two successful field trips to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Gamboa Panama. • Mentored: five undergraduate researchers resulting in two student authored publications and collaborated/co-advised one PhD student.