Laura Harrington

Dr. Harrington is currently the Dr. Michael J. Turell ’70, MS ’72 Professor of Entomology at Cornell University. She earned a PhD in Entomology in 1999 from the University of Massachusetts and completed Postdoctoral training at the University of California at Davis. Professor Harrington became interested in global health issues and vector-borne diseases after living and working for several years in rural Thailand. She contracted both dengue and malaria while living abroad and realized the impact these infections have on children and adults in resource poor nations. Her research focuses on the biology, ecology and behavior of mosquitoes that transmit human diseases. Current research projects in her laboratory address the blood feeding and mating behavior of mosquito vectors of dengue fever, Zika, Chikungunya, West Nile virus and malaria. She also studies human and animal-mosquito interactions and the role of climate change and globalization on emerging vector borne diseases. Dr. Harrington studies mosquito biology in the field locally as well as abroad, with past or present field sites in Thailand, Tanzania, and Mexico. Dr. Harrington has no formal extension appointment, but she is active in extension and outreach activities in New York and the Northeastern United States, and recently served as director of the Northeast Regional Center for Excellence in Vector Borne Diseases with a focus on addressing pressing questions in vector biology and control in the NE USA. She offers courses in Medical and Veterinary Entomology (ENTOM 3520), a non-majors course, Plagues and People (BIO&SOC/ENTOM 2100), she teaches the malaria module of Introduction to Global Health (NS 2060), and she has offered seminars with international service learning formats (ENTOM 4100: Malaria Interventions in Ghana and ENTOM 4110: Health Care in Honduras). Harrington mentors undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of entomology, ecology and evolutionary biology, comparative biomedical sciences, biomathematics, general biology, animal science, and biology and society. Professor Harrington has published more than 80 peer-reviewed articles and 3 scientific book chapters; many of these have focused on the biology and behavior of Aedes disease vectors. Her research has been supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, Gates foundation, USDA and Centers for Disease Control.