Western IPM Center

The Big World of IPM

Education EN ↓ 7 episodes

Welcome to the big world of IPM - integrated pest management! Pests are everywhere and ways to manage them safely and effectively are as diverse as the pests themselves. Throughout the Western United States, researchers develop new methods to solve these pest problems, from plant diseases and damaging insects in agricultural fields to rats in urban spaces. Join us to learn about these IPM experts’ unique journeys and how they help protect our homes, communities and environment in the safest ways possible. Intro music: It's Your Time to Dance by K-Lo Music, under license from Shutterstock

Author

Western IPM Center

Episodes

Mikenna Smith + Kelsey Mitchell: Yes, There are Ticks in Wyoming 17.11.2025 51:09

Meet Mikenna Smith and Kelsey Mitchell, an entomologist and biologist respectively at Teton County Weed and Pest District in Wyoming. Exposure to different work tasks of the District, like its mosquito identification program, gave Mikenna her love of bugs. She started a new tick monitoring program in response to the lack of information about what tick species and pathogens are in Wyoming. Kelsey h...

Jackie Serrano: Click Beetle Chemical Communications 17.11.2025 37:14

Meet Jackie Serrano, a research entomologist with the U.S.Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service located in Washington state. She found the perfect overlap of two of her interests, organic chemistry and entomology, in her field of insect chemical ecology. (Though, she was afraid of bugs before getting into entomology, and there’s still a few arthropods she is not fond of.) Jacki...

Gino Graziano + Joey Slowik: Attracting Predators of Root Maggots 17.11.2025 45:11

Meet Gino Graziano and Joey Slowik, who both work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service. Gino entered the integrated pest management world through invasive plant management, which is still a specialty of his. Joey is “the spider guy” who started his entomology/arachnology career as an arachnid taxonomist. They’re working on a project to test if cover crop mixes can at...

Andrew Sutherland: The Tip of the Iceberg for Biting Mite Management 16.07.2025 39:29

Meet Andrew Sutherland, the University of California Statewide IPM Program’s urban integrated pest management advisor for the San Francisco Bay Area. He took a winding path to urban IPM that started with horticulture and involved a misunderstanding that got him into entomology. He recently worked on developing monitoring traps for biting mites; very little research has been done on managing this p...

Lara Amiri-Kazaz: Scaring Away Aphids with Biocontrol 16.07.2025 45:28

Meet Lara Amiri-Kazaz, a Ph. D. student in the field ofsustainable integrated pest management. Lara started her IPM journey hating bugs but is now loving her entomology research. A self-proclaimed “field rat,” Lara is testing if the presence of predatory insects in chile pepper fields can keep away aphids that transmit alfalfa mosaic virus. Aphids don’t stay in chile pepper fields and can give a p...

Dawn Gouge: Equipping Urban Communities 16.07.2025 33:29

Meet Dawn Gouge, a Medical Entomology Professor & PublicHealth IPM Specialist at the University of Arizona. She works with urban pests of all kinds, from vultures to mosquitoes to bed bugs, including biting and stinging pests that are simply “effective communicators”. Playing in the polluted Mersey Estuary as a child inspired her to make a difference in how humans live on our planet. She has r...

Emma Kubinski: Critical Period of Weed Control and Carrots with Character 16.07.2025 35:36

Meet Emma Kubinski, a Ph. D. student in the field of ecological weed management. Her work in invasive weed management in natural areas led her to explore more nonchemical weed management practices in agriculture, including how weed diversity affects desirable plants. Her current work focuses on finding the critical time when weeds need to be managed in organic carrots and looking into alternate re...