About the Center for Insect Science

The Center for Insect Science (CIS) is a Division of the Bio5 Institute at the University of Arizona, Tucson. The Center was founded in 1989 when it received one of the three original National Science Foundation Biological Centers Awards. The Center is an administrative "umbrella" entity whose role is to foster collaborative research and education across topics relevant to integrative biology and areas of biomedicine and biotechnology that employ insects and other arthropods as model systems or investigate their medical impact. It is recognized that insects provide outstanding training research and training opportunities at all levels, from undergraduate to postdoctoral training and career development.

The Center's members are drawn from Arizona's three Universities: Northern Arizona University, in Flagstaff; Arizona State University, in Tempe; and the University of Arizona in Tucson, where the CIS Administration is located. CIS currently has formal international agreements in place with the University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany; Université François Rabelais de Tours, Tours, France; University of Southampton, Southampton, England; and Wenzhou Medical College, Zhejiang, China. These agreements allow for scholar exchange, collaboration and training.

The Center currently has over 130 member Faculty from over 15 Departments. Increasing emphasis is placed on fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. This is reflected by CIS Faculty, who represent many diverse areas of research. These include electrical and computer engineering; mechanical; aeronautical engineering; human physiology; neuroscience; molecular, cellular, and developmental biology; evolutionary biology and ecology, as well as the more traditional entomological sciences. The Center's Scientific Members are predominantly funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the US Department of Agriculture. The research interests of Scientific Members of the Center may be found via the People page.

While not an academic department, the Center has a history of providing the infrastructure for professional training programs. These include the recently ended NIH-funded IRACDA program "Postdoctoral Excellence in Research and Teaching" (PERT) and the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Entomology & Insect Science. CIS is also actively involved in outreach to local schools and community colleges. The Center hosts regular scientific meetings (Hexapodia), invited guest speakers, distinguished scientists, and the International Symposia on Molecular Insect Science.

Regents Professor
Department of Neuroscience
611 Gould-Simpson
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
flybrain@neurobio.arizona.edu

Director
Center for Insect Science
Arizona Research Laboratories
225 Life Sciences South
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
flybrain@neurobio.arizona.edu

Teresa Kudrna , Program Coordinator, Sr. 
Center for Insect Science
Phone: (520) 621-9310
FAX: (520) 621-2590
cis@arl.arizona.edu