Working in Entomology is a careers guide with a difference. Written by AES Member Rachel McLeod, it is a collection of interviews with prominent entomologists working in different areas, right across the subject, from insect breeding to genetic research. This is a must-have book for careers teachers, and for anyone who is considering a career in entomology.
- Ask yourself why, a poem by Rachel
- Editorial foreword & AES / Bug Club information
- Author's preface
- Acknowledgements
- Foreword: Sir David Attenborough
- Introduction: Professor Simon Leather
- The interviews:
- Dr George McGavin - Author & TV presenter
- Prof. Mike Majerus - Cambridge professor
- Dr Oliver St John - Genetic engineer
- Dr Martin Hall - Forensic entomologist at the NHM
- Dr Seirian Summer - Researcher at ZSL
- Prof. Chris Haines - Stored grain pest expert
- Virginia Cheeseman - Entomological supplier
- Rachel - a budding entomologist interviews herself
- Author's summary and conclusions
Rachel is 14 years old, and since she was a toddler she has loved looking at tiny things, and poking about under rocks and stones to see what she can find. Rachel first met Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches at the Stratford Butterfly Farm when she was five, and her affinity with them was immediately apparent. After three years of unremitting enthusiasm, her parents capitulated and gave Rachel a pair of hissing cockroaches for her eighth birthday. Since then she has collected seven or eight different cockroach species, sometimes totalling over 1000 specimens, as well as some millipedes.
Rachel's interest in insects led her to the Amateur Entomologists' Society, which has been an invaluable source of practical support and encouragement, and Rachel has been a very active member of its ‘Bug Club’ over the last five years (check out their website at www.amentsoc.org). She has written many articles for the AES Bug Club Magazine, as well as contributing a daily entomological blog to National Insect Week 2010.
Her most ambitious project to date has been this series of interviews with entomologists, originally published as a series of articles in the Bug Club Magazine. The interviews took place between September 2008 and October 2010, when Rachel was between eight and ten years old. Rachel hopes that these interviews will encourage other young people to consider entomology as a career; Rachel has certainly inspired her brother Magnus, who is seven and
has also contributed articles to the Bug Club Magazine.
In April 2008, Rachel was invited to lecture to AES members on cockroaches at the Natural History Museum. The success of this talk inspired other children to present talks on their interests, and presentations by young people are now a regular feature of AES events. Rachel has also given talks at the University of Cambridge and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and has given talks on insect microscopy to members of the Quekett Microscopy Club at the Natural History Museum.
Rachel's other interests span science, dissection, fossils, kayaking, art, riding bikes and ponies, playing the piano and ballet.