For more than 125 years, our faculty members, staff and students have been working to advance the field of insect biology and apply that knowledge to solve problems and improve lives.
As one of the top-ranked entomology programs in the country, our work spans the globe and impacts human lives on many levels, influencing a broad range of disciplines including human and veterinary medicine, farming, biodiversity and genomics.
The Department of Entomology's mission is threefold: To pursue studies to understand basic and applied aspects of insect biology; to provide a robust and modern curriculum as part of preeminent undergraduate and graduate programs; and to inform and educate the public about the issues related to insects and other arthropods. Explore our website to find out more about the department.
Entomology Position Announcements
Visiting the Department of Entomology:
In order to facilitate your visit to the Cornell Entomology Department and allow us a chance to set up meetings with specific individuals who can best answer your questions, please contact Alicia Caswell amd33@cornell.edu (Ithaca) or Nancy Reissig njs2@cornell.edu (Geneva) a week in advance so that we may schedule your visit with appropriate individuals.
Cole Gilbert
Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies
The goal of my research is to understand the current physiological function and evolutionary history of sensori-motor coordination used in visually-guided behavior by employing behavioral, kinematic, electrophysiological, neuroanatomical and computational modeling approaches. This research has two major thrusts: terrestrial (2D) pursuit of prey by tiger beetles and aerial (3D) chases of mates by male muscoid flies. Both systems suffer from a similar problem, namely relative motion of the observer and target degrades the visual contrast of the target, which adversely influences the neural input signal to the observer’s guidance system.