- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“Honorary Membership acknowledges those who have served ESA for at least 20 years through significant involvement in the affairs of the society that has reached an extraordinary level,” ESA officials said in announcing the three recipients on Aug. 24. “Candidates for this honor are selected by the ESA Governing Board and then voted on by the ESA membership.”
“I am honored and humbled to receive this award,” said Leal, a distinguished biochemistry professor with the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a former chair of the Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology). “It is truly a highlight of my career.”
Other 2022 Honorary Member recipients are research entomologist Alvin Simmons of the USDA Agricultural Research Service whom Leal fondly calls “my twin brother”; and research entomologist and UC Davis-educated Melody Keena of the U.S. Forest Service.
Leal and Simmons co-chaired the 2016 International Congress of Entomology conference, “Entomology Without Borders,” held in Orlando, Florida, that drew nearly 7000 attendees from 101 countries. It was the largest gathering of entomologists in the history of insect science.
Keena received three UC Davis degrees in entomology: her bachelor's degree in 1983; her master's in 1985, and her doctorate in 1988. (See her website.)
Leal, Simmons and Keena will be recognized during the 2022 Joint Annual Meeting of the Entomological Societies of America, Canada, and British Columbia, Nov. 13-16, in Vancouver.
As a leading global scientist and inventor in the field of insect olfaction and communication, Leal was named a 2019 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) for his impact in the fields of molecular, cellular biology, and entomology. (Due to the COVID pandemic, the organization cancelled the 2020 Phoenix ceremony and Leal received the medal in June 2022.)
“When Walter Leal reached UC Davis, he came with the reputation of being a ‘one man army in research,'” said UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock who received the NAI Fellow award in 2014. Hammock holds a joint appointment with the Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. “This reputation was well deserved. I know of no one at UC Davis who matches Walter in taking his remarkable fundamental advances in science and translating them to increase the safety and magnitude of world food production.”
Leal, an expert in insect communication, investigates how insects detect odors, connect and communicate within their species; and detect host and non-host plant matter. His research, spanning three decades, targets insects that carry mosquito-borne diseases as well as agricultural pests that damage and destroy crops. He and his lab drew international attention with their discovery of the mode of action of DEET, the gold standard of insect repellents.
Leal was recently elected chair of the International Congress of Entomology Council, which selects a country to host the congress every four years and which supports the continuity of the international congresses of entomology. Leal succeeds prominent entomologist May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, editor-in-chief of the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and a 2014 recipient of the National Medal of Science.
“I have big shoes to fill,” he said.
Federal Grants. For the last 22 years, Leal's research program has drawn support from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health, the United States Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, commodity groups, research agreements, and gifts from various donors.
He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers in a variety of entomology and multidisciplinary journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS), Nature, iScience, Journal of Medical Entomology, Insect Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology. His research, with an h-index of 61, has been cited more than 13,500 times.
A native of Brazil, educated in Brazil and Japan, and fluent in Portuguese, Japanese and English, Leal received his master's degree and doctorate in Japan: his master's degree at Mie University in 1987, and his doctorate in applied biochemistry at Tsukuba University in 1990. Leal then conducted research for 10 years at Japan's National Institute of Sericultural and Entomological Science and the Japan Science and Technology Agency before joining the faculty of the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 2000. He chaired the department from July 2006 to February 2008.
Leal has served ESA for more than two decades, organizing symposia at the annual meetings, and serving as secretary, president, and past president of the ESA Integrative Physiological and Molecular Insect Systems section, now the Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology section. “He organized more than a dozen program and section symposia and included outstanding scholars and newly minted ESA members as speakers or co-organizers,” ESA noted. “These symposia included sponsored luncheons, social hours, and discussion sessions to promote interaction among attendees and speakers and build and cement collaborations.”
Highly Honored by Peers. Highly honored by his peers, Leal is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Entomological Society (2015) and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2005), ESA (2009), and California Academy of Sciences (2015). He received both the Medal of Achievement (1995) and the Medal of Science (2008) from the Entomological Society of Brazil and the 1998 Gakkaisho from the Japanese Society of Applied Entomology and Zoology. In 2019, ESA selected him to deliver the Founders' Memorial Lecture on "Tom Eisner: An Incorrigible Entomophile and Innovator Par Excellence."
The International Society of Chemical Ecology honored him with its Silverstein-Simeone Award (2007) and the Silver Medal (2012). In 2012, Leal was elected to the Brazilian Academy of Science (inducted in 2013). For his creativity in entomology, Leal received ESA's Nan Yao Su Award (2011) and was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2019). The UC Davis Academic Senate awarded him both the Distinguished Teaching Award (2020) and the Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award (2022).
