Dr. Gary W. Felton, a professor and head of the Department of Entomology at Penn State University. He is internationally recognized for his research on insect-plant interactions, and in particular on the role of herbivore saliva in evading plant defenses.
  Felton was born in Norfolk, VA in 1953, but soon moved to California where he grew up. He completed his B.S. in biology in 1975 at the University of California, Irvine, where he was inspired by Howard Schneiderman to study insect physiology. After taking several years off from his education to start a family, Felton completed his M.S. in entomology in 1983 at the University of Kentucky, where he studied under Douglas Dahlman. He then moved to the University of California, Davis, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1988 with Sean Duffey. After a short postdoctoral study with Duffey, he became an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Arkansas in 1990. He attained the rank of full professor in 1998 and then accepted the position as professor and head of Entomology at Penn State University in 2000.

Felton’s research focuses on mechanisms of plant defense and the adaptations that herbivorous insects use to avoid them. This research has uncovered unique ways in which insect herbivores use salivary secretions to suppress the induced responses of their host plants and has been published in journals such as Nature and the Proceedings of the  National Academy of Science. He has published more than 100 refereed papers, including numerous review articles for book chapters and journals such as Plant Physiology, Current Opinion in Plant Biology, and Annual Plant Reviews.