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The Conversation

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Two women from different parts of the world share the stories of their lives

Two women from different parts of the world, united by a common passion, experience or expertise, share the stories of their lives.

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The Conversation: Women who love insects

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Women who love insects

12/04/2021 GMT

BBC World Service - The Conversation, Women who love insects

Insect enthusiasts Jessica Ware and Carolina Barillas-Mury on why bugs matter.

Canadian-American entomologist Jessica Ware and Guatemalan vector biologist Carolina Barillas-Mury have made a career out of their love for bugs.

Insects have been around for more than 350 million years, longer than dinosaurs and flowering plants. We are vastly outnumbered by them – there are approximately 1.4 billion insects for every person on earth. And although we tend to treat them with disdain, they are absolutely essential to our survival. Kim Chakanetsa talks all things buzzing, crawling and flying with two insect enthusiasts who have made a career out of their love for bugs.

Dr Jessica L Ware is a Canadian-American entomologist specialising in dragonflies and damselflies. She’s the first African-American associate curator in invertebrate zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the vice-president of the Entomological Society of America. A single mother and an adventurer, she has travelled the world following dragonflies and she is passionate about diversifying the scientific community.

Dr Carolina Barillas-Mury was born in Guatemala and spent her life studying mosquitoes to understand how they transmit malaria. She heads the Mosquito Immunity and Vector Competence Section at the National Institutes of Health - one of the world's foremost medical research centres -  and she believes the way to fight malaria is to work with, and not against, mosquitoes.  

Produced by Alice Gioia

IMAGE DETAILS
Left: Carolina Barillas-Mury (courtesy of Carolina Barillas-Mury) 
Right: Jessica L Ware (credit Sallqa-Tuwa Stephanita Bondocgawa Maflamills)

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