WSU News Service

Gretchen Snyder graduated with a doctorate degree in entomology last August and accepted the position of laboratory manager for the Department of Entomology and lab manager for the W.E. Snyder Insect Ecology Laboratory at Washington State University.

Snyder was able to balance being a single mom to two daughters as well as her vigorous doctoral program. She was dedicated to both her family and her research even when one of her daughters developed severe health issues and when a member of her doctoral committee suddenly left WSU.

Part of Snyder’s research required her to spend the majority of the summer in the collard fields of Othello. The temperatures reached the high 90s and the research plots were dusty and difficult to work in. She persevered through the unfavorable conditions and completed an excellent doctoral dissertation. From that work she was the primary author of one publication and a contributing author of three other publications. Snyder also took second place for the President’s Presentation Award at the Entomological Society of America’s Student Competition.

“Once Gretchen starts on a project she is dedicated to the project at hand, is thorough and sees it through to completion,” said Dory Lohrey-Birch, the academic program coordinator for the department of entomology.