COLLEGE STATION, Texas—The Department of Entomology at Texas A&M would like to welcome Dr. Hojun Song as Assistant Professor of Entomology in Arthropod Systematics and Biodiversity.
Song joined the Department on January 12 and replaced the position that Dr. Wharton left after he recently retired in August 2013. Before coming to A&M, Song was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Central Florida and was curator of the Stuart M. Fullerton Collection of Arthropods at UCF.
Song is broadly interested in systematics and evolution of the order Orthoptera, which includes grasshoppers, crickets and katydids. His current research program includes phylogenetics of Orthoptera, the evolution of density dependent phenotypic plasticity in grasshoppers and locusts, the evolution of insect male genitalia, the evolution of nuclear mitochondrial pseudogenes, and mitochondrial genomics.
In regards to teaching, Song has taught several undergraduate and graduate courses at Central Florida, including General Entomology, Integrative Biology, Phylogenetic Approaches in Biological Research, and Introductory Organismal Biology, as well as coordinated the graduate seminar courses.
Song currently serves as the President for the Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity Section of the Entomological Society of America, an Organizing Committee member for the 2016 International Congress of Entomology, the Program Committee member of the Entomological Society of America in 2014-15 and a Governing Board member of the Orthopterists’ Society. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Insect Systematics and Evolution, a subject editor for the journal Zootaxa, and the Editor of Metaleptea, a newsletter of the Orthopterists’ Society.
Some of the awards Song has received include the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award from the National Science Foundation in 2013, the Dean’s Rising Star Award from the University of Central Florida in 2014, the John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award in 2006, and the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship during 2002-2005.
Song received his Bachelor of Science in Entomology at Cornell University in 2000, his Master of Science in Entomology from The Ohio State University in 2002 and his Ph.D. in Entomology at The Ohio State University in 2006. He was a postdoctoral research fellow at Brigham Young University during 2006-2010.