I received my Ph.D. in Entomology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1980. My association with USDA/ARS began in 1975 when I worked in Biological Control of Weeds Lab in Rome, Italy, and then in East Africa in 1976. In 1981, I was hired by USDA/ARS Biological Control of Weeds Lab, Albany, CA, where I worked on leafy spurge, Russian thistle, and Passiflora mollissima. From 1989-1993, I was the Director of the Asian Parasite Laboratory in Seoul, South Korea, where I worked primarily on gypsy moth and the aquatic weed Trapa natans. In 1994, I joined the Ft. Lauderdale, FL Laboratory. I have frequently worked as a foreign explorer for natural enemies, in quarantine research defining host-specificity levels for potential biological control agents, and in projects to utilize and evaluate biological control agents in the field.