WCU professor Brian Byrd receives 2026 BOG Award for Excellence in Teaching
Brian Byrd, Western Carolina University’s professor of environmental health sciences and resident “skeeter man,” was awarded the 2026 University of North Carolina System Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Byrd has been with WCU since 2008 and has taught thousands of Catamounts over his tenure. His most recent courses include “Epidemiological Methods,” “Vector-borne Disease Control,” “First Year Seminar” and “Global Health.”
Doing battle with the world's deadliest animal: WCU researchers join the fight against mosquito-borne diseases
Sure, mosquitos are an important link in the food chain for amphibians, birds and other insects, but they’re annoying, they’re persistent and they can actually kill you. Two researchers at Western Carolina University are working on a faster, cheaper, more reliable method to identify which ones will.
WCU gets grant to study mosquitoes
Brian Byrd, Western Carolina University’s mosquito expert and professor in the environmental health sciences program, along with Scott Huffman, professor in WCU’s Department of Chemistry and Physics, have been approved for grant funding from NCInnovation to continue their work in developing tools that utilizes spectroscopy to analyze vibrational signals from mosquitoes.