university professor Zoologist
Berenbaum graduated summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Surgery degree and honors in biology, from Yale University in 1975. She attended graduate school at Cornell University and received a Doctor of Philosophy in ecology and evolutionary biology in 1980.
In addition to her research, she is devoted to teaching and to fostering scientific literacy. she is the recipient of the 1996 Entomological Society of America North Central Branch Distinguished Teaching Award and has authored numerous magazine articles, as well as three books about insects for the general public. She has also gained some measure of fame as the organizer of the Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois, an annual celebration of Hollywood"s entomological excesses. She also had a character in The X-Files named after her: Doctor Bambi Berenbaum, a famous entomologist and love-interest of Agent Mulder.
In March 2011, she was awarded the University of Southern California"s Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.
lieutenant was announced that she would have her first new species (Xestoblatta berenbaumae Evangelista, Kaplan, & Ware 2015) named after her publicly in November 2014.
In 1996, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Berenbaum received the 2009 Public Understanding of Science and Technology Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On 3 October 2014, President Barack Obama awarded the National Medal of Science to Berenbaum. She received the medal in a White House ceremony on November 20, 2014.
National Academy of Sciences. American Academy of Arts and Sciences]
Since 1980, Berenbaum has been a member of the faculty of the department of entomology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and has served as head of the department since 1992.
