Year of Honorary Fellowship, 2019
Jeremy Nichol McNeil CM FRSC (born 1944) is an English-Canadian biologist and zoologist. In 2004, he was named the Helen Battle Professor of Chemical Ecology in the Biology Department at the University of Western Ontario, having previously worked at Laval University.
The main thrust of his research programme is to understand the reproductive strategies of insects that migrate in response to either predictable or unpredictable habitat change. The research is multidisciplinary in nature, looking at the behavioural and ecological aspects, as well as using physiological and molecular approaches to understand the mechanisms controlling the reproductive biology in species where mate location and mate choice are modulated by sex pheromones. Professor McNeil is also interested in different aspects of plant-insect and host-parasitoid interactions that involve chemical cues (infochemicals).
Professor McNeil generally chose to work on pest species, or their natural enemies, as model research systems. He believes this allows us to not only address basic questions in reproductive biology but also to generate data that may be used in the development of more environmentally rational approaches to insect control.
