Alumni This Entomologist Alum Wants You to Fall in Love with Bugs Stories You May Like By the Deep Blue Sea, an Idyllic Spot for Teaching and Research Doctoral Grad Is a Leading Researcher of Wildlife Crime Doctoral Alum Has Devoted His Career to Saving Lemurs Samuel Ramsey ’11 was terrified of them as a child—but now he’s a passionate advocate for celebrating and protecting them By Melissa Newcomb After Samuel Ramsey ’11 released a song on YouTube, the New York Times called it “silly, but surprisingly smooth.” The 2021 tune, titled “Big Red Eyes,” is sung from an unusual point of view: that of cicadas crooning a love song after emerging from living underground for 17 years. Ramsey is an entomologist—one who has devoted his career not only to teaching and research, but to inspiring the public to love insects as much as he does. Also known as “Dr. Buggs” and “Dr. Sammy”—his nicknames on the educational YouTube channel he has maintained since grad school—Ramsey has been featured in a wide variety of media outlets including PBS, the Washington Post, CNN, Wired, “CBS This Morning,” and the “Today” show. Inspecting a honey bee hive, with a fascinated onlooker. “If you learn about these creatures, you’ll find there’s a lot of charm to them,” says Ramsey, an assistant professor of entomology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “If you can understand why they do the things they do, you may find a blossom of curiosity replaces your fears.” Ramsey knows what he’s talking about—because as a child, he had a paralyzing terror of insects. If you learn about these creatures, you’ll find there’s a lot of charm to them. “I thought they were the most despicable, disturbing creatures on the planet,” he recalls. “It got to the point that I was having nightmares about them regularly.” Wisely, his parents recognized the need to intervene; when he was seven, they took him to the library and told him to learn about insects. As Ramsey observes: “People fear what they don’t understand.” He became a voracious reader of all things bug-related—learning, among many other things, that insect and human behavior share many of the same motivators, such as hunger or fear. With his parents during Commencement. Stories You May Like By the Deep Blue Sea, an Idyllic Spot for Teaching and Research Doctoral Grad Is a Leading Researcher of Wildlife Crime He eventually made it his mission to humanize the six-legged creatures. On the Hill, he majored in entomology in CALS and went on to earn a doctorate in the field from the University of Maryland, College Park. His creativity and playful, informal style—as in a series of YouTube videos titled “New Bug, Who Dis?”—have resonated with audiences. His many spots on public TV and radio have included weighing in on “murder hornets” for NPR's Short Wave and appearing on WNYC’s Terrestrials, a Radiolab for Kids podcast that explores the natural world—and why it’s stranger than we think. His creativity and playful, informal style—as in a series of YouTube videos titled “New Bug, Who Dis?”—have resonated with audiences. Ramsey is Terrestrials' “chief bug correspondent,” showcasing insects like the tsetse fly—whose bites spread disease, but which also plays a key role in protecting ecosystems. He travels the world conducting research, including in Singapore, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea. Among his lab’s ongoing work is the Honey Bee-nome Project, a multi-continent research effort to sequence the genome of every honey bee species—as well as their parasites and diseases—to help entomologists protect them and prepare for new outbreaks. Filming in the Bangladesh jungle for an episode of WNYC's Terrestrials. In 2022, Ramsey was named a National Geographic Explorer—joining a prestigious network of researchers, naturalists, and others who’ve received grants from the global conservation and media organization. For Ramsey, that was a particular thrill—given that he had so many Nat Geo magazines as a kid, he’d build a fort out of them, then sit inside it to peruse their pages. “I’d read about people cutting through dense forests with a machete to find cool animals,” says Ramsey. “To actually get to be that person, with my binoculars, finding different species of bees and showing them to the world—it’s amazing.” (Top: Portrait by Julian Vankim. All other images provided.) Published April 7, 2025 Comments Jean P. McIntyre, Class of 1966 8 Apr, 2025 When I was a child growing up in western New York, I sometimes found “bugs” in vials in our freezer – my dad ran an experiment because he thought freezing might preserve eye color. We were also cautioned not to run around close to the furnace registers in the living room, as dad had insects “relaxing” (in covered dishes with Kimwipes and sponge). I was also used as bait when my dad and I went out on weekends in search of horse- and deerflies. I would walk ahead a bit and when I heard the unmistakable buzz of a deerfly I would yell “Dad” and within seconds, the fastest net in the East would swoop down. I was lucky to appreciate insects at an early age! I am the daughter of Professor L. L. Pechuman, curator of the Cornell entomological collections 1962-1982. He received his BS, MS, and PhD all from Cornell. 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