William Reisen Receives Harry Hoogstraal Award

Research entomologist William Reisen. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Sept. 27, 2012

DAVIS—UC Davis medical entomologist William K. Reisen, internationally renowned for his comprehensive research on mosquitoes, especially those that transmit encephalitis and West Nile virus, is the recipient of the 2012 Harry Hoogstraal Medal after four decades of “outstanding achievements in the field of medical entomology.”

Reisen, who directs the Center for Vectorborne Diseases (CVEC), based at UC Davis, will receive the award Nov. 11 in Atlanta, Ga. at the 61st annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). He is an Academic Federation research entomologist in CVEC; an adjunct professor in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology (PMI); and a graduate student advisor with the UC Davis Entomology, Microbiology, Epidemiology and Comparative Pathology Graduate Groups.

Reisen is the fourth medical entomologist from UC Davis to receive the award since it was first presented in 1987. Other UC Davis recipients:

2007: Bruce Eldridge, former director of the statewide UC Mosquito Research Program and emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis

2005: Robert Washino, emeritus professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology

2004: John Edman, former director of CVEC and emeritus professor of entomology

Several other UC medical entomologists have received the coveted honor: A. Ralph Barr of UCLA in 1995; Thomas H. G. Aitken, UCLA, in 1993; and William C. Reeves of UC Berkeley in 1987.

The coveted ASTMH award memorializes parasitologist-entomologist Harry Hoogstraal (1917-1986), a global authority on ticks and tick-borne diseases, whom Reisen met in Cairo in the early 1980s.

Reisen was nominated by fellow CVEC researchers Aaron Brault, Chris Barker, both PMI faculty, and Eldridge. Describing him as “genuine” and “a rarity,” they praised his expertise, accomplishments, dedication and enthusiasm.

William Reisen working with water chemistry at a mosquito breeding site near Lahore, Pakistan.

“Bill’s vast experience and strong work ethic make his perspective genuine,” wrote the nominators. “His enthusiasm for his work and his interest in his colleagues and students has not diminished through his decades in the field, and having spent his boyhood exploring nature at every opportunity, he has often said that he has spent his career in disbelief that anyone could get paid for such fun work. He has served as a role model for many aspiring arbovirologists/medical entomologists, and for those of us, ourselves included, who have been fortunate enough to have worked with him, we will always be grateful for his advice, assistance and friendship.”

Reisen's University of California career began in 1980 as a research entomologist and director of the Arbovirus Field Station, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley. Although the UC Berkeley program transitioned to Davis in 1995, he moved to the UC Davis campus in 2005 to provide administrative oversight for the arbovirus program and later CVEC.

Reisen’s current research targets the population ecology of Culex tarsalis and other mosquitoes and their vertebrate hosts in relation to the epidemiology, surveillance and control of arboviruses in California.

The award nominators noted that “Bill Reisen’s career epitomizes the description of this award, spanning over forty years during which he has published over 260 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters in the field of medical entomology, served on countless research grant review committees focusing on medically important arthropod vectors and/or disease agents, and served extensively on medical entomology editorial boards. He has also received many competitive research awards himself from national and international research funding agencies. He has also guided the careers of a number of MS and PhD students and post-doctoral fellows. We cannot think of any individual who would qualify more as having made an outstanding contribution to the field of medical entomology.”

Born in Jersey City, N.J., Reisen received his bachelor’s degree in agriculture, with a major in entomology and plant pathology, at the University of Delaware, Newark; his master’s degree in zoology, with a supporting field in experimental statistics from Clemson University, South Carolina; and his doctorate in zoology, with supporting fields of medical microbiology and ecology, from the University of Oklahoma, Norman.

As a captain in the U.S. Air Force, he served as a vector-borne disease surveillance and control officer based in Manila and then Clark Air Base, the Philippines, and conducted disease and vector surveys in Korea, Okinawa, Thailand, and Guam.

Following his military service and graduation from the University of Oklahoma, he worked as a an assistant professor of international medicine at the University of Maryland’s International Center for Medical Research and Training at Lahore, Pakistan where he conducted research on the bloodfeeding behavior of anopheline mosquitoes (which transmit malaria) and took part in experiments using sterilized male mosquitoes released as a control mechanism as well as studies on mosquito population ecology in relation to pathogen transmission.

“This marked Bill’s first venture into the field of arbovirology with the study of the enzootic transmission cycles and vector competence of Pakistani Culex spp. for transmission of West Nile virus,” Brault, Barker and Eldridge wrote. Following the political unrest in Pakistan after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 that resulted in the dissolution of the University of Maryland program in Lahore, Reisen accepted a position at UC Berkeley as research entomologist and director of the Arboviral Field Station.

William Reisen doing mosquito research at walk-in red box.

Throughout his career, Reisen has directed projects studying the vector competence of mosquitoes for newly introduced viruses, established new surveillance testing paradigms, and initiated complex interactive networks, sharing surveillance data with mosquito control agencies and public health officials to speed mosquito control response times and to minimize disease risk to humans.

The trio of nominators cited several examples of his continual scientific contributions: “the effects of climate variation on arthropod-borne pathogen transmission, modeling efforts for predicting arbovirus risk, the application of insecticides for reducing the disease burden of West Nile virus in California, the use of liquid suspension array technologies for the identification of mosquito bloodmeals and his keen observation of the role of stagnant swimming pools as breeding sites for Culex spp. vectors in Sacramento County.”

Highly honored for his work, Reisen received the American Mosquito Control Association’s 2006 John N. Belkin Award for Excellence in Vector Ecology, the 2006 Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Vector Ecology (SOVE), and the 2001 Lifetime Award for Achievement in Medical Entomology from the SOVE International Congress. He was selected a fellow of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) in 2003. His awards also include the 2004 UC Davis Academic Federation Award for Excellence in Research.

Reisen is active in the American Mosquito Control Association, Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California, the Society for Zoonotic Ecology and Epidemiology, ESA, SOVE and ASTMH.

His public service also includes editor-in-chief of the ESA’s Journal of Medical Entomology from 1988 to 1995 and subject editor of the journal (continuing); chair of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association; vice president and president of SOVE from 1988 to 1992; chair of an ESA section; and program reviewer for numerous federal grants. He most recently spoke on climate change for the Institutes of Medicine and as a consultant for the White House on the impacts of climate change on arthropod-borne disease transmission.

(Editor's Note: Research entomologist William Reisen is interviewed for a two-part NBC news piece on West Nile virus earlier this month. Part 1
Part 2 )

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--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894