My little Entomology passion!

Wepa!

I am Eduardo Valentin, formally the Dry Bean Breeding technician from the PHREC-UNL. I have a B.S degree in Agronomy with a concentration on Crop Protection from the University of Puerto Rico. Started my career at the Experimental Agriculture Station from UPR working with dry bean breeding, and in addition I worked with the USDA-Tropical Agriculture Research Station.

                My entomology passion begun when I was in my last undergraduate year, were I met a professor that was working on insect toxicology. We started talking about my summer practice until he mentioned what he was doing. I heard that very interesting so I asked him to work on any research about insect toxicology. That is where all begun! Dr. Gallardo quickly show me a very little friend, the Cylas formicarius or well known as the worst weevil for the sweet potato in Puerto Rico.

                My research was about searching for a lethal doses using an entomopathogenic fungus, Beauveria bassiana. As a result my Entomology passion grew. As soon I started working in my first job, I looked for any opportunity on working with insects. The breeder from the program mentioned that one of his graduated student was studying resistant of dry beans to the bean weevil Acanthoscelides obtectus and he may need help rearing the insect. So I agreed!

                Thanks for all that experience, I am currently working on my Online MS Degree in Entomology with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; were I am conducting a research on beneficial insects focusing on pollinators.