Columbus is buzzing with excitement as the National Entomology Society's 2026 Annual Conference comes to Ohio State University.
Carrie Elvey from Ohio State's department of entomology joined Morning Edition Host Stu Osborne to discuss the conference.
Carrie Elvey: This is a professional conference for entomologists from all over the country. (Sunday) was the grand opening, a lot of meet and greets, networking, vendors in the vendor hall, including a bunch of artists and people from industry. Monday is really about students. There's competitions for students to give presentations and to share posters, and to share the work that they're doing. And then Tuesday and Wednesday are professional meetings. Researchers (will be) sharing what they've been doing, having panel discussions and having working groups.
Stu Osborne: You mentioned the students. How do they benefit from attending this conference? Does it kind of give them a leg up on potential employment opportunities when they graduate?
Carrie Elvey: It does on many levels. It's huge for our graduate students who are going to be entering the workforce soon. There's a lot of industry leaders here. So it's a chance for them to show off what they can do. It’s almost like sports scouting. There'll be people kind of watching them do their thing. There's also (opportunities) for undergraduates. This is a phenomenal chance for them to get that first sort of step into the professional world either during a poster (session) or doing a talk or just being amongst sort of mass knowledge and seeing how the professional entomology world works.
Stu Osborne: Is this the first time Ohio State has hosted the conference?
Carrie Elvey: Yes, yes. It hasn't been in Ohio, anywhere in Ohio, for quite a long time. And so we're really, really excited. It gives not only a chance to show off our department, but the whole university. So there's been all sorts of side trips. They've done tours of Columbus. There was a foodie tour. There's a knitting group that's making bugs, knitting bugs, and they met at a local coffee shop. So they've really gotten to explore, not just the university, but the whole of Columbus as well.
Stu Osborne: That's probably good from an economic development standpoint where, you know, more money's coming into Columbus and it's also getting the city more exposure on a national level.
Carrie Elvey: Absolutely. And in fact, that's one of the reasons that they came to Columbus, besides the fact that they could partner with the university, which is not something the Entomology Society gets to do very often. But with the new hotel in town, the capacity was just so easy for them. So it actually started with them finding out that the convention center had the new Hilton connection and how all of that grew. And Columbus is just such a welcoming town for those kind of conventions.
Stu Osborne: I was going to ask you about the BUGmobile. Tell me about that.
Carrie Elvey: Yeah, so the entomology department at Ohio State has two different arms of outreach. One is the BUGmobile, which is stationed down here in Columbus. It's a converted Airstream and it goes out on the road to festivals and fairs. It’s a place where people can come onto the BUGmobile, handle live bugs, meet live bugs in an offsite setting. We also have the Bug Zoo, which is based on our Wooster campus. It’s an on-site zoo for people to come in and visit. The BUGmobile is actually pulled inside the convention center. It's set up so people can see it. We have a bug set up outside the convention center for people to hold. And inside the BUGmobile for this event, we have multiple displays featuring the work that all of our research labs do.
The National Entomology Society’s annual conference runs Nov. 8-11.
