Co-Chair's Welcome Message

Join us in St. Louis!

We hope you are planning to join us for the 67th Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America! You are going to love this meeting! From the easy and walkable downtown between hotels, the convention center, and attractions, to the competitive pricing, and the many one-of-a-kind (and free!) things to do in St. Louis, you are going to have a vibrant and fun meeting experience.

This year’s meeting will feel more energetic than ever. We are thrilled to report that we will record-breaking student participation.  Over 30% of the total presentations in the program are from students! It is exciting to know there is a robust and engaged pipeline for entomology.

Our Society is so fortunate to have deeply dedicated staff and volunteers who have been working over the past year to curate an innovative and invigorating meeting program to support President Bob Peterson’s vision for the Advocate Entomology! theme. This year’s meeting will include everything you know and love about ESA meetings with thought-provoking symposia, skill-development workshops, productive Lunch and Learns, and rich poster sessions. But, this meeting will also delight you with new features and surprises!

For the first time, ever, the meeting will feature an “ento-preneurial” pitch competition, The Antlion Pit. Competition leader, Marianne Alleyne, crafted guidelines and webinars to guide innovation teams through idea development and pitch preparation. A starting pool of 26 entries competed to make it to the national, live, final pitch. $10,000 in funding will be awarded to the top pitches to support entomological innovation (grand prize = $5,000, 2nd place = $2,500 and audience favorite = $2,500 so please participate!). Who will make it out of the Antlion Pit to innovate the future of entomology??? Come and find out on Monday afternoon at the meeting in the final live event, you won’t want to miss this!

Also new this year, the poster session will feature infographics as a special category. This new format encourages the use of highly visual presentations of research or informational material to maximize its impact. This category is open to both student competition participants and regular members. Be sure to check out this new presentation type in the exhibit hall during the meeting.

In addition to these featured events, overall there will be more than 2,300 oral presentations and more than 650 posters/infographics! Approximately one-third of these will comprise the student competition on Monday, November 18th. This year, our excellent convention center space, allows us to have all students compete on the same day. Our Student Competition Co-Chairs Juang-Horng (JC) Chong and Theresa Pitts-Singer have done a fantastic job to ensure the competition provides a positive forum for students to share their work.

While we certainly hope you will make the most of the scientific program, St. Louis has a lot to offer and you might want to take in one of the many local attractions or meeting tours such as the Bayer Research and Development Center tour (free!), Gateway to St. Louis intro tour, tour of the beautiful Forest Park area, and or course, a History of Brewing tour!

We look forward to seeing you in St. Louis!

Patti L. Prasifka and Rayda K. Krell, 2019 ESA Program Committee Co-Chairs