Dr Michael Skvarla is the Director of the Insect Identification Laboratory at Penn State and an Extension Educator. His previous work has focused on the taxonomy and systematics of the mite family Cunaxidae and terrestrial arthropod biodiversity of the Interior Highlands, but now revolves around specimens that are submitted to the ID lab, including deer keds (Diptera: Hippoboscidae) and bethylids associated with humans (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae). He has published 36 peer-reviewed papers and numerous fact sheets and other popular articles. This is his first time editing a collected volume.Dr Ronald Ochoa has published more than 180 articles, two websites, two catalogs, four books and six book chapters on e.g. insects and mites of economic importance. He has worked and studied in the fields of acarology and entomology for the past 39 years, including 16 years of teaching and fieldwork responsibilities and 20 years with the United States Department of Agriculture. Most of his studies address the systematic and ecological associations with the mite orders Acariformes and Parasitiformes, with an emphasis on plant-feeding mites and bee mites.Jose Carlos Verle Rodrigues, PhD, Full Professor at the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), received his BS in Agronomy and PhD in Nuclear Energy in Agriculture from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. He is currently directing a multi-agency project that established the first certified US offshore Center of Excellence for Quarantine and Invasive Species at the UPR. Dr Rodrigues is also a Professor (Adjunct Collaborator) of Graduate Programs (Crop Protection, Biology and Natural Sciences) at the UPR, BioNorte (Amazon Biodiversity and Biotechnology Network), and the Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil. A former President of the Acarological Society of America (2011 and 2017), he is also an active member of the National Science Foundation (NSF), Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology, and Center for Applied Tropical Ecology and Conservation (CREST-CATEC).H. Joel Hutcheson, MS, PhD, is a research scientist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) in Lethbridge, Alberta. Currently head of the Centre for Vector-borne Diseases at the CFIA’s National Centre for Animal Diseases, he has worked with the Acari and tick-borne diseases for more than 30 years, at the university and (US and Canadian) federal government levels. He is also an adjunct/affiliate faculty member of the University of Calgary, University of Lethbridge, Colorado State, and Georgia Southern University.
