Do you remember being asked as a child, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Most of us had generic answers – a doctor, lawyer, maybe a policeman or firefighter. As children, we didn’t think of the numerous other professions that we could become such as a chemical engineer or entomologist, but how many people actually know what an entomologist is?
Dr. James English didn’t plan on studying insects as a kid, but he is now a nationally recognized disease ecologist and environmentalist. The Navy veteran has brought his passion and environmental expertise to Lipscomb University’s Institute for Sustainable Practice (ISP).
While attending the University of Arkansas – Little Rock, English found out that he loved biology classes that studied animals and wound up studying animal ecology.
As a 20-year old reserve Navy corpsman, English’s U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Battalion was activated to serve in Desert Storm while he was still in college.
“Talk about a growth period for me going out to Desert Storm as a 20, 21-year old kid in charge of guys getting shot,” he said. “It certainly was a character building time.”
After war, English found it difficult to adjust back to the college life, but he did find himself a more serious student and began to take full advantage of his opportunity for higher education. After graduating from the University of Arkansas – Little Rock, English taught high school for two-years and eventually earned his Ph.D. in animal ecology from the University of Arkansas – Fayetteville.
English would later rejoin the Navy as an officer, serving as a disease ecologist and medical entomologist. He later became the director of the first West Nile Virus Program in the military.
“I studied diseases that are important to the military. They are really concerned with diseases that will have an immediate effect,” he said. “Malaria was certainly the one that started it, that was the original disease of military concern.”
Malaria and other life-threatening parasitic diseases are more common in places such as Africa, Central and South America. Cases in the United States usually stem from tourists, and travelers that have gone or come from another country. It is estimated that one million people worldwide die from malaria each year.
In another assignment, English was responsible for updating disease profiles for half of the world ranging from the Mississippi River east to India and Pakistan. He collected intelligence on disease outbreaks, making decisions on travel warnings and prescribing precautionary measures based on that information.
In 2004, English went back to Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and was in charge of ecology and diseases.
“That’s were my training in ecology really paid off. The military up to that point, at least in combat situations – their approaches were insecticides to kill all the mosquitoes and sand flies,” said English.
“Those were tools available to us, but there are smarter ways to get rid of mosquitoes rather than spraying them with chemicals. We did a lot of draining water,” he added. “It’s much smarter to say ‘what can we do to keep water from standing.’ Figure out how to get rid of standing water rather than spraying pesticides.”
English is convinced that there is no animal that purely lives on eating parasites, and the world would be fine without mosquitoes.
“Bats eat a lot of mosquitoes, but if there weren’t any mosquitoes they would do fine on something else. It’s a hard case to make that there’s a place in the ecosystem for a tick, mosquito or sand fly,” he said.
Whether working to preserve ecosystems, reducing disease, learning what environmental factors are important to endangered species or teaching students how to take better care of the systems we rely on, English said he is always having fun.
“When I was in college it never occurred to me that I could have a career doing what I’m doing,” he said. “When you find something you’re passionate about, it doesn’t feel like work.”