Biography

Biography of Zachary Huang

Zachary Huang is an associate professor in entomology at the Michigan State University. Zachary grew up in a small village in Hunan and attended an agricultural college in China (first batch of college students after the cultural revolution). During the early 80s, he obtained a national scholarship to study honey bees in Canada. After obtaining his Ph.D. with Prof. Gard Otis at University of Guelph, he moved with his family to University of Missouri at Columbia to work with plant mites, as a postdoc with Prof. Charles Knowles. One and half year later he moved to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and returned to honey bee research with Prof. Gene Robinson. On November 1st, 1998, he came to the Michigan State University as an assistant professor. He became tenured and was promoted to associate professor Oct of 2004.

At MSU, his main responsibilities include research, extension, and teaching. He is known for developing the social inhibition model (at UIUC) which explains how nurse to forager transition is regulated, the mitezapper (MSU) which is a non-chemical control for the infamous Varroa destructor, his cyberbee.net (started in 1997 but developed mainly at MSU) for extension, and award winning photographs. He was awarded the J.I. Hambleton Award for Outstanding Research by the Eastern Apicultural Society of North American Inc. August 2008 (one honey bee scientist per year is awarded).

His current research includes how stresses affect honey bee behavior, physiology and colony performance. Stresses studied include Nosema apis, Nosema ceranae, Varroa destructor, extreme temperatures, transportation and/or pollination, and pesticides. He writes regularly about honey bee flowers on his blog bees.msu.edu.

Current academic and non-academic positions:

Associate Professor, Entomology, EEB, Beacon, Michigan State University.

Adjunct Professor, Henan Institute of Science and Technology, Xinxiang, Henan, China.

Editorial boards: Apidologie, Insects, Scientific Reports

Web Host (providing technical support, maintenance and hard drive space for the web) for AAPA, michiganbees.org, IUSSI-NAS, and OCEA.

Past positions:

Member, College Academic Council, CANR (College of Agriculture and Natural Resources),
MSU Faculty Adviser, Chinese Student and Scholar Association of MSU, 2010-2016

Member, Academic Committee of Ministry of Agriculture Key Laboratory ‘Biology of
Pollinating Insects’,  Institute of Apicultural Research, China, Oct 2011 – Oct 2015

President, American Association of Professional Apiculturist, 2013

Chair, Heartland Apicultural Society (HAS), 2013

Advisor, Taiwan Apicultural Society, Nov 2012-Sept 2013

Founding Director, HAS (Heartland Apicultural Society)

Secretary, vice-Chair, Chair of Section Cb (Apiculture and Social Insects), Entomology Society of America (ESA)

President, CFC (Chinese Faculty Club), MSU

President, OCEA (Overseas Chinese Entomologist Association)

Vice President, SINO-ECO (Overseas  Chinese Ecologist Association)

Academic journey 

Before MSU: [Guelph Time, Mizzou Time, UIUC time]

Yearly reports at MSU: 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 |

Full CV available here as a pdf file. but the pub section here might be more updated.