Ticks and Tick Ecology n Mississippi: Implications for Human Disease Transmission.

Dodgen Lecture--2001

Jerome Goddard was born and raised in Booneville, Mississippi. He holds a B.A.E. and M.S. in biology from the University of Mississippi (1979 and 1981), and a Ph.D. in medical entomology from Mississippi State University (1984). He and his wife, Rosella Blackman Goddard, have two sons. Jerome Goddard served as an Air Force medical entomologist for 3 1/2 years prior to accepting the position of medical entomologist for the Mississippi Department of Health. He also is a clinical assistant professor of preventive medicine in the School of Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. In addition, he holds associate graduate faculty rank in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at Mississippi State University.

Dr. Goddard has conducted research on tick ecology and tick-borne diseases. One series of projects he conducted investigated where and why ticks cluster in specific ecological micro-habitats. His present work is focused on rickettsial organisms associated with common, human-biting ticks.

He is perhaps best known as a broadly-trained, classical medical entomologist with almost encyclopedic knowledge of medically important arthropods. He has written a medical entomology textbook, "Physician's Guide to Arthropods of Medical Importance" which is now in its Third Edition and is used by physicians worldwide. Dr. Goddard has written two other books on medically important pests, two book chapters, and 80 scientific articles, 37 of which are published in refereed journals. In addition, he writes a regular column on medical entomology for the medical journal, Infections in Medicine.

Jerome Goddard has been a visiting professor in the Department of Dermatology at the Mayo Clinic, as well as a member of a NIH panel convened to study the future of tick taxonomy in the U.S. In 1999, he testified before Congress on the public health benefits of pesticides.

The Dodgen lecture is named in honor of Charles L. Dodgen, University of Mississippi Medical Center. Dodgen joined the Academy in 1959. He became executive officer in 1972, a post he held until his death in 1980.