Win marks third national title for University of Florida entomology students, sixth top two finish since 1993
By Wes Wolfe/FFGS Communications
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Students from the University of Florida showed up at the Entomology 2025 conference in Portland, Ore., to both make friends and win, which they did, beating North Carolina (N.C.) State to claim the Entomological Society of America’s Entomology Games championship.
The Entomology Games are “a lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competition on entomological facts played between university-sponsored student teams,” according to the ESA, which began hosting the competitions in the early 1980s. The conference this year ran Nov. 9-12.
The students who participated in the competition are from UF/IFAS School of Forest, Fisheries, and Geomatics Sciences (FFGS) and UF’s Entomology Department. Team members included Miranda Barnes, Joey Gonsiorek, Noah Barguez-Arias, and Hyojin “Jin” Jeong — along with alternates Nathaniel Levia and Angely Galvez.
They rolled past Penn State in the semifinal 130-70, then defeated the team from N.C. State in the final, 130-105.
“Both games were fairly neck and neck for the first half, but they do cut us off after there’s no chance of one team getting enough points to win with the questions remaining,” said Barnes, a Ph.D. candidate in the Forest Entomology Lab. “Particularly for the last game, there was a lot of back-and-forth early on between us and N.C. State where we kept swapping who was in the lead.
“It was only in the end that UF really pulled ahead. Both Penn State and N.C. State had really strong teams — hopefully it was as exciting for the people watching as it was for us to go head-to-head.”
Challenges in the games are meant to mirror situations in real life, testing teams’ abilities at quickly identifying insects, diagnosing their problems, and otherwise applying their knowledge.
“We all study roughly the same question sets to prepare for the competitions, but we come to it from different research and personal backgrounds and sometimes know about different things as a result,” Barnes said.
“For example, at this year’s competition Noah Barguez-Arias had a really nice steal relating to a pest on hazelnuts — she works with snails and thrips but was clued in by the variety names they were listing — and I was able to interrupt on an emerald ash borer question because I have a forest entomology background.”
Coaching the UF team were Dr. Estelle Martin, assistant professor for insect vectors and public health, along with Dr. Amanda Hodges, director of UF’s Doctor of Plant Medicine Program. Dr. Gideon Alake and Dr. Eric Rohrig also lent a hand during practices.
“Although new questions or variations of questions occur, the best teams learn the question bank and learn to buzz in quickly to a question,” Hodges said. “Oftentimes, a hesitation to buzz in early or once the question has been read in its entirety results in a missed win. Once the teams are significantly behind in the competition, it can be difficult to recover.”
She noted that the UF team’s second-place finish to N.C. State in the regional branch competition provided motivation to become more confident and quicker in their answers.
“Overall, some continuity has occurred with many of the questions over the years, and it is fun to watch the games unfold,” Hodges said. “Over 20 years ago, I enjoyed playing the games as a student at the University of Georgia.
The School of Forest, Fisheries, & Geomatics Sciences is a unit within the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS). We are home to three distinct yet integrated program areas: Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Forest Resources and Conservation, and Geomatics. We have sites and centers located across the state. Our faculty, staff, and students conduct research, teaching, and Extension that cuts across a wide range of environments and disciplines.
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