Which employer did Robert Raguso work for after Sep 2007?
Robert Raguso Robert A . Raguso ( born January 30 , 1965 ) is an American biologist and professor at Cornell University in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior . He has expanded the field of chemical ecology by introducing and pioneering floral scent as a key component of plant-pollinator communication , with special focus on hawkmoths and Clarkia plants . Life . Robert Andrew Raguso was born on January 30 , 1965 , in Englewood , New Jersey . At age 5 , Raguso was introduced to his first cecropia moth by Campbell Norsgaard , a film maker and naturalist , as a part of the Broader Impacts activities advocated by the National Science Foundation . This encounter sparked Ragusos interest in moths which has continued for 50 years . Raguso started his research career as a high schooler during the summers of 1982 and 1983 , working as a technician in the laboratory of Columbia University Professor Darcy Kelley , who taught summers at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole , Massachusetts . Ragusos interests expanded from moths to butterflies , and his love for the biological diversity of Lepidoptera led him to study butterflies with Professor Charles Remington at Yale University . During the summer of 1985 , Raguso expanded his biological interests and pursued field research at a variety of destinations . At Mountain Lake Biological Station in the Southern Appalachians of Virginia , Raguso developed a lifelong fascination with pollination while studying nectar variance and risk aversion by bees with Professors Beverly Rathcke ( later a key figure in his graduate years ) and Leslie Real . Raguso also traveled to Laguna Encantada near Catemaco in Veracruz , Mexico , where he initiated a butterfly survey with Professors Carol C . Horvitz and Doug Schemske that would eventually become his first publication . Raguso also completed a senior honors thesis on the biodiversity of interior Colias butterfly populations , which had been separated anywhere from 8 to 12,000 generations due to the retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet . Raguso graduated from Yale in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science , majoring in biology and minoring in art history . Following graduation , Raguso spent two years working as a technician in the Stanford University laboratory of Professor Ward Watt , an accomplished former student of Charles Remington . Under Watts guidance , Raguso broadened his understanding of evolutionary genetics and functional ecology , caring for thousands of caterpillars of Colias butterflies , taking classes , and learning research techniques such as high-performance liquid chromatography and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis . In 1989 , Raguso moved to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to start doctoral studies with Eran Pichersky . There , with encouragement from Rathcke and Michael Martin , he developed methodologies to test evolutionary hypotheses on the functional importance of floral scent . Raguso learned to collect and analyze floral volatiles , mastering gas chromatography and molecular spectroscopy ( GC-MS ) as he worked midnight-to-dawn shifts in the universitys chemistry labs . Through bioassay-guided fractionation , Raguso isolated the individual molecules contributing to the floral scents of two lines of Clarkia breweri as well as its suspected progenitor , Clarkia concinna . Evolutionary shifts in scent produced by these flowers contributed to a parallel change in the pollinator identities of these flowers . In 1995 , Raguso earned his PhD after completing his thesis Mechanisms of floral scent production and hawkmoth pollination in Clarkia breweri ( Onagraceae ) . Through this work , Raguso laid a critical foundation for further research involving floral volatiles . In 1996 , Raguso embarked on postdoctoral studies at the University of Arizona , guiding his research interests back to hawkmoths under the mentoring of Professors John Hildebrand and Lucinda McDade . Funded through the Center for Insect Science , Raguso worked after sunset with Mark Willis in the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum , piecing together the multimodal feeding behavior—a combination of visual and olfactory stimuli—of hawkmoths when visiting Datura flowers . Further postdoctoral studies involved mapping floral volatiles onto phylogenetic relationships , particularly in the context of hawkmoth pollination disappearing and reappearing repeatedly in three plant lineages . Raguso started a faculty position at the University of South Carolina in 1999 , served as a visiting professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal between 2006 and 2007 , and moved to Cornell ( replacing the father of chemical ecology , Tom Eisner ) in 2007 , where he currently serves as a professor . More on Ragusos professional preparation and scientific development can be found here . Research . Raguso has continued to develop the study of floral scents and their importance in the pollination of wild plants over the past decades . He is cited for behavioral studies of insects , flowers , plant chemical ecology , and integrating physiology and evolutionary theory to understand the mechanistic basis of pollination . To date , his research has resulted in over 150 peer-reviewed scientific publications and over 7,000 citations by his peers . He is the past chairperson of his department at Cornell . Ragusos laboratory studies signal evolution from the standpoints of both the producer ( plants ) and receiver ( insects ) . In each of several study systems , he and his students have dissected the importance of plant volatile organic compounds in pollination and coevolution between species . He has a long-standing interest in plants in the evening primrose family ( Onagraceae ) , including Oenothera and Clarkia species . From the insect perspective , Raguso has focused on hawkmoths ( especially Manduca species ) and has investigated their use of floral scent , humidity , and carbon dioxide produced in flowers . Manduca perceive these cues and use them opportunistically . In addition to flowering plants , Raguso has published on mosses and fungi that use color and scent to trick flies into dispersing their spores to rotting substrates . His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation , National Geographic Society , and the Andrew W . Mellon Foundation . Raguso has been an invited lecturer at universities , public gardens , and classes . In addition to his work at Cornell , Raguso teaches a field course on volatile analysis at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory and has been a visiting instructor for a variety of ecological and behavioral courses in Chile , Costa Rica , Sweden , Spain , and Germany . Raguso is the co-founder of the Gordon Research Conference on Floral Volatiles . Raguso is a Fulbright senior fellow , National Geographic Explorer , and recipient of the 2017 Silverstein-Simeone Award from the International Society of Chemical Ecology . Raguso has two children with his wife , Dr . Laurel Hester , assistant provost at Keuka College , with whom he currently resides in Ithaca , New York . External links . - Raguso lab website - Interview on In Defense of Plants podcast - Interview on Big Biology - Interview on Locally Sourced Science - Interview on Science Friday