Department Facilities

Entomology, one of 8 departments in the College of Natural Resources and the Environment (CNRE), is housed in four different academic buildings. Fernald Hall, the departmental headquarters, has a large lecture hall, two teaching laboratories, a conference room, an insect museum, faculty laboratories and a copy facility, along with departmental, faculty, and graduate student offices. The Department also has assigned to it greenhouses, insect rearing rooms, cold rooms, and a cold storage facility.

Specialized Equipment

Specialized equipment includes: gas chromatographs, high-pressure liquid chromatographs, liquid scintillation counters, gel electrophoresis apparatus and scanning densometers, thin-layer chromatographic linear analyzer, absorption and reflective spectrophotometers, preparative and ultra centrifuges, plate readers for immunoassay, and weather recording instrumentation. For behavioral studies, we have flight mills, wind tunnels, event recorders, and a variety of video recording and analysis equipment.

Biotechnology Facilities

In addition, facilities for insect cell and tissue culture are also available in the department as well as equipment necessary for gene cloning, DNA sequencing, and DNA amplification using polymerase chain reaction technology. Through the campus-wide Biotechnology Program, the Department has access to facilities for amino acid analysis, protein sequencing, and peptide synthesis as well as oligo-nucelotide synthesis, and cell sorting.

Imaging

The College has its own GC/MS facility and the University maintains a modern imaging center with transmission and scanning EM.

Field Stations

Field work is conducted at the University's orchard in Belchertown, at the horticultural research farm located along the Connecticut River in South Deerfield, in University forests, at the Suburban Agricultural Center in Waltham, at the Cranberry Research station in East Wareham.