Dr. Fiona Hunter

Fiona received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Toronto and her Ph.D. from Queen’s University. Throughout her academic career she has focused on biting flies. Although she has a special fondness for black flies, in recent years she has spent most of her time studying mosquitoes. Fiona has graduated dozens of students (both M.Sc. and Ph.D.), many of whom have gone on to work in the field of Medical and Veterinary Entomology. Most work now in the area of Public Health.

When West Nile virus first appeared in Ontario, there was an urgent need for mosquito surveillance and identification as well as for viral testing of mosquitoes.  For the first few years this was all done as research at Brock University.

However, after 2004 it became rather routine and Fiona’s spin-off company, Entomogen Inc., became a “Service Provider” for many Health Units and First Nations Communities across the province. The company continues to hire several entomology students each summer for West Nile Virus Mosquito Identification and Viral Testing.

In 2012, Brock opened its Containment Level 3 lab (including a CL3 Insectary) for studying live West Nile Virus infected mosquitoes. Recently, Fiona and her students are studying Zika-infected mosquitoes to understand what makes one species a competent vector, and another a non-competent vector.

Fiona has been very active in the Entomological Society of Canada and has served as President of the Entomological Society of Ontario. She has spent 7 years on various Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant selection committees, and is the former Director of the Wildlife Research Station in Algonquin Provincial Park.

On a personal note, Fiona has a hobby farm where she raises alpacas for their fleece. She says that cleaning out stalls and tending to the animals is where she manages to de-stress after a day’s work, and she claims that some of her best scientific ideas came to her while spending time with her animals!

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