Bipana Paudel Timilsena
My name is Bipana Paudel Timilsena. I recently graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with Ph.D. in Entomology and a dual-title degree in International Agriculture and Development (INTAD). I specialize in the chemical ecology of plant-insect interactions and species distribution modeling.
My graduate research work in Entomology focuses on the chemical ecology of plant-insect interactions, especially uncovering 1) herbivore-based specificity in plant-plant communication, and 2) specific groups of herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) responsible for activating plant defense priming.
For my Dual-title degree in INTAD, I worked with a group of scientists at the International Center for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) Kenya to develop fall armyworm potential distribution model to highlight the global invasion threat, with emphasis on the fall armyworm establishment risk to Africa under climate change scenarios. For this project, I was awarded the '2018-2019 Outstanding Graduate Student International Research Award' by Graduate School, Penn State. This particular recognition is awarded annually to only one graduate student among ~15K graduate students enrolled at Penn State. In addition, I received a 2018-19 INTAD competitive research grant to support the project.
Before coming to the USA, I served as an Agricultural Officer in Educate the Children Nepal, where I trained about 500 smallholder farmers on integrated pest management (IPM) on vegetable crops. I also worked as a technical officer at Nepal Agriculture Research Council, where I conducted horticulture research.