Entomological Society of Canada – Honorary Members

Honorary Membership is bestowed by vote of the Society membership, to a current or former Active Member of the Entomological Society of Canada who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of entomology. Honorary Members are elected by the members of the society in a plebiscite. This year the society recognizes three new Honorary members.

John Borden

Near the end of his first year of graduate studies 58 years ago John Borden became a member of the Entomological Society of Canada (ESC) and presented his first oral paper at the society’s 1964 annual meeting in Vancouver. Funds were scarce, even at the University of California, Berkeley, so John and three fellow students camped out in his parents’ home in West Point Grey instead of staying at the expensive Hotel Vancouver. John published his first peer-reviewed paper in The Canadian Entomologist in 1965 and followed that up with another 72 papers with the latest appearing in 2022, an average of 1.3 papers per year in the society’s journal. John had learned a lot about self-discipline while serving four years as an enlisted man in the United States Marine Corps, and he applied that trait assiduously while finishing his undergraduate studies at Washington State University in 1963 and completing his masters and PhD studies at Berkeley in three years flat. That enabled him to return home to British Columbia in 1966 just in time to join the faculty of Simon Fraser University during its first year of existence.

At SFU, John excelled as a mentor, finishing his academic career having supervised 101 graduate students who completed 12 MSc degrees, 73 Master of Pest Management (MPM) degrees and 34 PhDs. He played a major role in developing the MPM program, particularly the five professional courses in which students spent 13 weeks all-day-every-day learning pest management with hands-on experience in the field. John’s graduates have played a major role in shaping the profession of entomology in Canada. Twelve of his graduate students and postdoctoral fellows have become members of the faculty of six universities in four Canadian provinces and two British Columbia colleges. Eight of his graduate students have become Research Scientists with the Canadian Forest Service, and six with Agriculture and Agri Food Canada (AAFC). Thirty-eight have served in professional positions with AAFC, Health Canada, Environment Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, seven ministries in three provinces and one university. At one point all six Regional Forest Entomologists in British Columbia, as well as the Provincial Forest Entomologist, were his graduates. Many others have worked in industry, 10 for Phero Tech Inc. (a spin-off company from his laboratory), four for large companies, three for small pest management service companies and 11 set up their own pest management consultancies. Perhaps most notably, John trained and supervised Dr Gail Anderson as a Forensic Entomology Intern in 14 homicide investigations prior to her appointment (by special arrangement with the BC Coroner’s Office) to the Simon Fraser University Faculty as Canada’s first academic Forensic Entomologist.

John’s research has primarily been on chemical ecology and management of forest and agricultural insect pests. He has led collaborative studies that identified pheromones in 50 insect species and developed semiochemical-based strategies and tactics for managing several species of ambrosia and bark beetles, large woodborers, cone and seed insects, root maggots and orchard bugs and moths. The integrated pest management (IPM) program for ambrosia beetles in the BC timber industry that arose from his laboratory and was implemented in 1982 is now the world’s longest running semiochemical-based IPM program. John was a participant in a collaborative effort to identify the queen mandibular gland pheromone of honey bees, which was published in Nature. He was the first investigator to discover a role for juvenile hormone in adult insects and to demonstrate synergism between pheromone enantiomers. Both studies were published in Science. John has published 406 papers in peer-reviewed journals, one book, 17 book chapters, two reviews in peer‐reviewed journals, three annotated bibliographies, one edited conference proceedings, two research reports, one glossary, 56 non‐refereed publications (No. 56 was published in the Working Life section of Science), and 55 publications in which he was not an author, but which arose from supervised research. He has also received 11 patents, with one pending, and has delivered 170 invitational presentations in 18 countries. Since his mandatory retirement from SFU in 2003, John worked for three companies until 2017, when at the age of 79 he set up a sole proprietorship consultancy. With industry, he has worked on developing new products for bark beetles, honey bees, yellowjackets, fruit flies, bed bugs, synanthropic flies, ticks, mosquitoes and rodents. Among his many honors, John has received the ESC’s C.G. Hewitt Award and the Gold Medal. He is a Fellow of the Entomological Societies of Canada and America and the Royal Society of Canada.

Owen Olfert

Dr Owen Olfert grew up in rural southwestern Saskatchewan. His interest in entomology was stimulated during his undergraduate degree in Agricultural Biology (1975) at the University of Saskatchewan. Following the completion of his undergraduate program, Owen completed a PhD in Pest Management (1979), also at the University of Saskatchewan, during which he quantified the defoliation of cereal crops by grasshoppers, providing a baseline study of the economics of grasshopper damage. In 1979, Owen began his career as a research scientist with AAFC at the Saskatoon Research Station developing new electronic tools to map grasshopper populations for the annual forecast. As an insect ecologist, Owen’s research interests involved developing and testing integrated pest management (IPM) tactics for insects in extensive prairie agricultural systems. In the mid-1990s, Owen originated the Tri-provincial Monitoring Group. Now known as the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network, this highly collaborative team of entomologists in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba has standardized insect monitoring protocols, developed modern forecasting tools, and continues to conduct annual insect pest monitoring activities. His research program also studied the ecology, population dynamics, alternative control, and insect/host plant interactions of important agricultural insects. For example, Owen joined the team developing management strategies for wheat midge after the massive outbreak in 1983 in east-central Saskatchewan and he played a major role in developing a comprehensive IPM program for this pest. Upon returning from sabbatical at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, Owen expanded his research to include a bioclimatic modelling component to predict potential distributions of insects, including invasive alien species across Canada. This research led to the first assessments of the impact of climate change on insect pests and their natural enemies of importance to agriculture in western Canada.

To date, Owen has published more than 120 peer-reviewed manuscripts, over 10 review papers, multiple book chapters, and contributed to countless technology transfer articles and industry reports. He has presented his research at regional, national, and international conferences (> 175 conference proceedings), including a keynote lecture delivered in Pyongyang, North Korea in 2013. He has mentored numerous undergraduate students, graduate students, and young research scientists. As Chair of the AAFC Biological Control Working Group for over 15 years, as a Section Head, and as an Acting Associate Director for Research Development and Technology at multiple AAFC Research and Development Centres, Owen also gained national recognition for his calm and effective leadership skills. Although he retired from AAFC in 2018, Owen remains active in the entomological community and his influence continues to guide research in the Canadian and international entomological communities.

Dan Quiring

Dr Dan Quiring [BSc Hons Biology, Simon Fraser University,1979; PhD, Université Laval, 1984] is nominated for Honorary Membership in the Entomological Society of Canada to recognize outstanding contributions to the scientific literature on insect ecology, dedicated mentorship and teaching of graduate and undergraduate students in entomology, and meritorious service to the Entomological Society of Canada. After a brief period as a research scientist for Agriculture Canada (1984–1986), Dr Quiring was hired by the Faculty of Forestry, University of New Brunswick (UNB), where he studied and taught insect ecology, plant-insect interactions and integrated pest management (IPM) until his retirement as Honorary Research Professor in July 2013. During his career, Dan supervised 10 PhD students, 21 MSc students and 47 senior undergraduates, publishing >100 papers in refereed journals, 3 book chapters, 78 articles in Proceedings/ non-refereed journals, and >200 papers at scientific conferences. The quality of his mentorship is reflected in the achievements of his students, six of whom were awarded best thesis of the year and eleven awarded 1st or 2nd in student paper competitions at scientific conferences. For his excellent contributions to teaching and scholarship, Dr Quiring received UNB’s Merit Award in 1990 and 2006. A hallmark of Dan’s career was his productive synthesis of basic and applied entomology, applying the results of curiosity-driven research to improve forest management, and procuring more than $4.2 million in funding from NSERC, federal and provincial governments, the forest industry and other agencies.

Dr Quiring’s service to the ESC was exceptional, serving as a member of: the ESC Awards Committee (1986–1987), Science Policy Committee (1987–1989), Scholarship Committee (1993–2002), and the Governing Board (1989–2002); as Chair of the By-Laws and Standing Rules Committee (1990–1994), Science Policy Committee (2003) and Awards Committee (2004); and as first Vice-President, second Vice-President, President, and Past-President (2004–2007). Dan was also Associate Editor of The Canadian Entomologist (1995–2010) and gave the Heritage Lecture at the 2011 Joint Annual Meeting of the ESC and Acadian Entomological Society of Canada. Dr Quiring’s previous honours include the John Henry Comstock Award from the Entomological Society of America (the first Canadian graduate student to receive this Award), the “Prix Léon Provancher” from the Société Entomologique du Québec (1993), and the C. Gordon Hewitt Award (1994). We sincerely hope the members of the ESC members agree that Dan Quiring is deserving of

An Active Member or former Active Member who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of entomology may be elected an Honorary Member of the Society.

Click here for a complete list of all Honorary Members of the society, including deceased individuals.