Head Lice Podcast: Meet the Scientist

Meet Entomologist Richard Pollack from our Head Lice Podcast:

Where do you work?

Well, that all depends on the day of the week and time of day. Here's the short list:

• President & Chief Scientific Officer, IdentifyUS LLC 
• Visiting Researcher, Boston University 
• Instructor, Harvard School of Public Health 
• Adjunct Assistant Professor, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, Tufts University
• Commissioner, Norfolk County Mosquito Control District Commission Chair
• Mosquito Advisory Group, Massachusetts Dept of Agricultural Resources

What do you study?

As a public health entomologist, I explore the ecology, epidemiology, physiology and behavior of those insects and ticks that find us attractive.

What are three titles you would give yourself?

Entomologist, dead-pan stand up comic, realist.

What do you like to do when you are not working?

When not in the lab, you'll find me the field (or in painfully maddening never-ending bureaucratic meetings).

What do you like most about science?

It would be the same answer that most scientists would utter: What I do is intellectually stimulating. That's good, because the financial rewards seem inversely proportional to the cerebral ones. Furthermore, I can go anywhere in the world and find my little friends - much to the annoyance of family members accompanying me.