Lynn Siri Kimsey is an entomologist, taxonomist, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis since 1989.
16 Facts About Lynn Kimsey
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Lynn Kimsey's specialties are bees and wasps; and insect diversity and evolution.
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Lynn Kimsey holds the title of distinguished professor of entomology.
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Lynn Kimsey was appointed as the director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, operated by UC Davis, in 1989.
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Lynn Kimsey's husband Robert Kimsey is a forensic entomologist in the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
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Lynn Kimsey has named 250 new species and 17 new genera.
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Lynn Kimsey served as part of a team of UC Davis scientists and collaborators who received a five-year $4 million grant in 2008 to study the biodiversity of fungi, bacteria, plants, insects and vertebrates on Sulawesi, an Indonesian island near Borneo.
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In Sulawesi, Lynn Kimsey discovered the largest wasp species recorded to date, a so-called "monster wasp" with jaws that exceed the length of its limbs.
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Lynn Kimsey named this wasp species Megalara garuda after Garuda, the national symbol of Indonesia, a giant, bird-like creature.
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Lynn Kimsey published the description of one additional species of wasp discovered in Sulawesi called Mahinda sulawesiensis.
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Lynn Kimsey has brought back hundreds of possible new species from the three trips to Sulawesi that have yet to be cataloged.
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Lynn Kimsey collaborated with James Carleton to identify 139 living insect species.
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Lynn Kimsey received the UCLA Senate Distinguished Scholarly Service Award in 2016.
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Lynn Kimsey identified insects that were consistent with two major automotive routes between California and Kansas; her data supported court testimony that the round trip drive accounted for the 4,500 miles on the rental car.
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Lynn Kimsey started an insect identification hotline for California residents to phone in to aid in insect identification and potentially, pest control measures.
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Lynn Kimsey is currently editor of the Bulletin of the California Insect Survey.