An entomologist is a scientist who studies insects and their relationships to humans, the environment, and other organisms. That broad definition covers a surprisingly wide range of careers, from protecting crops on farms to helping solve criminal cases to tracking the spread of mosquito-borne diseases. What an entomologist actually does on any given day depends heavily on their specialty, but the work generally splits between fieldwork (collecting specimens, surveying populations, monitoring habitats) and lab work (analyzing data, identifying species, running experiments).
Agricultural Pest Management
The largest share of entomologists work in agriculture, where their primary job is protecting crops from insect damage while minimizing pesticide use. This falls under a framework called Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which treats chemical pesticides as a last resort rather than a first response. Instead, entomologists in this role spend their time monitoring pest populations, identifying which species are present, and deciding whether the numbers are high enough to justify intervention.
That decision isn’t a guess. Entomologists use economic injury levels, which represent the pest density at which crop damage costs more than the cost of controlling it. They set action thresholds below that level so farmers can intervene before real damage starts. Day to day, this means scouting fields, counting insects, checking traps, and comparing numbers against those thresholds.
When intervention is needed, entomologists often recommend non-chemical strategies first: rotating crops to break pest life cycles, planting resistant varieties, introducing natural predators, or adjusting planting schedules. They also work to conserve beneficial insects like pollinators and the natural enemies of pests. In highland Andean farming communities, for example, IPM strategies reduced damage from the Andean potato borer beetle from roughly 45% to just 4%, and those methods are still in use decades later.
Medical and Public Health Roles
Medical entomologists focus on insects and related arthropods that transmit diseases to humans. Mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, and sandflies are the primary targets. These entomologists survey insect populations across a region, analyze which species are present, and direct control efforts to reduce disease transmission.
At a state health department, for instance, an entomologist might run a tick surveillance program, tracking where certain tick species are expanding their range and whether they carry pathogens. They also serve as technical advisors on safe pesticide use, write public education materials about vector control, identify arthropod specimens submitted by the public, and train other public health workers in entomology basics. The work sits at the intersection of biology and public health policy.
Forensic Investigations
Forensic entomologists assist law enforcement by using insects to answer questions about death scenes. When a body decomposes, it attracts a predictable sequence of insect species. By identifying which species are present and measuring the developmental stage of their larvae, a forensic entomologist can estimate the postmortem interval, meaning how much time has passed since death.
The process is surprisingly precise. Different insect species grow at known rates that depend on ambient temperature. A forensic entomologist measures the length or weight of the oldest larvae found on a body, then cross-references that data with temperature records from the death scene to calculate how many days of development have occurred. Insect larvae can provide reliable time-of-death estimates for up to about a month after death. Beyond estimating when someone died, the insect evidence can also reveal whether a body was moved from one location to another, since different environments host different insect communities.
Conservation and Biodiversity
A growing number of entomologists work in conservation, particularly around pollinator declines and broader insect biodiversity loss. This work involves establishing monitoring sites to track insect populations over time, training specialists in insect taxonomy (since you can’t protect what you can’t identify), and developing habitat restoration strategies. Some entomologists in this space also study the role of cultivated insects in food supply chains, such as honeybees managed for crop pollination or insects farmed as protein sources.
Fieldwork and Lab Tools
Entomologists split their time between outdoor collection and indoor analysis. In the field, the basic toolkit includes sweep nets for catching flying insects, collecting jars, and identification guides. More advanced fieldwork might involve light traps, pitfall traps, or soil extraction devices that use heat to drive small arthropods out of leaf litter. Back in the lab, the work shifts to pinning and preserving specimens, examining them under microscopes, running genetic analyses, and maintaining reference collections that serve as identification libraries for future work.
Many entomologists at universities and government agencies also build and maintain large entomological collections. These aren’t just displays. They’re scientific records that document which species existed in a particular place at a particular time, making them invaluable for tracking how insect populations shift over decades.
Education and Career Path
Entry-level positions in entomology, like field technician or lab assistant roles, typically require a bachelor’s degree in entomology, biology, or a related field. Many graduates start through internship programs with agencies like state departments of agriculture, working in insect diagnostic laboratories, conducting field surveys, and building specimen collections.
Research positions, university professorships, and leadership roles in government agencies generally require a master’s degree or Ph.D. For entomologists working in applied settings like pest management consulting, the Entomological Society of America offers a Board Certified Entomologist (BCE) credential. Earning it requires more than two years of education beyond high school, more than two years of work experience, and passing an exam. Maintaining the certification requires ongoing continuing education and adherence to ethical standards.
Salary and Job Outlook
The Bureau of Labor Statistics groups entomologists with zoologists and wildlife biologists. As of May 2024, the median annual wage for that category was $72,860. Employment in the field is projected to grow 2% from 2024 to 2034, which is slower than average. That modest growth number can be misleading, though, since it doesn’t capture demand in adjacent sectors like agricultural consulting, public health vector control, and the pest management industry, where entomological expertise is consistently needed.