Brian V. Brown Entomology Section Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90007, U.S.A. Telephone (213) 763-3363 FAX (213) 746-2999 Short Biography Brian V. Brown is Curator of Entomology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. A native of Toronto, Canada, Brown did his undergraduate and masters work at the University of Guelph. During the latter, under the tutelage of Steve Marshall, Brown took up the study of the fly family Phoridae. In 1990, he obtained his doctorate at the University of Alberta in Canada, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution and University of Maryland. In 1993 he took up his current position in Los Angeles. An author of two books, as well as numerous scientific papers, he has conducted research in many parts the world, but especially tropical rainforests. There, he studies phorid flies, especially those parasitic species known as ant decapitating flies and bee killing flies. He is also interested in fossil phorid flies in amber, integrating them into phylogenetic knowledge based on morphology and molecular characters. Currently, he has funding from the National Science Foundation to lead the effort to completely inventory the Diptera (true fly) fauna of the mid-elevation tropical forest in Costa Rica. A further endeavor is his exploration of the urban insect fauna of Los Angeles, called the BioSCAN project, which has uncovered surprising new knowledge about species living in local backyards. In 2016, the Museum announced the Urban Nature Research Center, of which Brown is co-director. Curriculum Vitae Employment May- September 1981. Technician (identified invertebrates, zooplankton). Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Fisheries Research Section, P.O. Box 50, Maple, Ontario, L0J 1E0, Canada. Supervisor: Dr. D.O. Evans. May- September 1982. Technician (identified invertebrates, zooplankton). Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Fisheries Research Section, P.O. Box 50, Maple, Ontario, L0J 1E0, Canada. Supervisor: Dr. D.O. Evans. May- September 1983. Technician (collection, curation and preparation of insect specimens). Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada. Supervisor: Dr. S.A. Marshall. Fall- Winter 1984-1985. Teaching assistant (undergraduate entomology laboratories). Department of Environmental Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada. Supervisor: Dr. S.A. Marshall. Winter 1989. Teaching assistant (undergraduate entomology laboratories). Department of Entomology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2E3, Canada. Supervisor: Dr. D.A. Craig. Jan 1991-December 1992. Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian Institution/ University of Maryland. 19 January 1993 - November 1998. Assistant Curator. Entomology Section, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90007, U.S.A. 18 February 1993. Appointed Head of Entomology Section, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90007, U.S.A. June 1996- June 1997. Adjunct Faculty Member, Santa Monica College. 4 November 1998. Promoted to Associate Curator. Entomology Section, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90007, U.S.A. 21 October 2004. Promoted to Curator. Entomology Section, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90007, U.S.A. 1 December- 1 August 2007. Served as Acting Associate Deputy Director of Research & Collections, , Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, 90007, U.S.A. Education Honors Bachelor of Science University of Guelph 1983 Master of Science University of Guelph 1985 Thesis Title: Revision of Gymnophora Macquart (Diptera: Phoridae) of the Holarctic Region. Doctor of Philosophy University of Alberta 1990. Thesis Title: Generic revision of Phoridae of the Nearctic Region and phylogenetic classification of Phoridae, Sciadoceridae and Ironomyiidae (Diptera: Phoridea). Grants and Awards Received Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship (1986-1989) Graduate Faculty Fellowship (1986-1989) Andrew Stewart Graduate Prize (1989) Max and Marjorie Ward Scholarship (1986, 1988) Entomological Society of Canada Research-Travel Grant (1990) University of Alberta Dissertation Fellowship (1990) Honorable Mention in Student Paper Competition, Entomological Society of America (1990) Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship (1991-1992) The Governor General of Canada's Gold Medal (1991) Smithsonian Biodiversity in Latin America Project (BIOLAT) Research Grant (1991) Organization for Tropical Studies Tropical Research Fellowship (1992) National Science Foundation Research Grant DEB-9407190 "Systematics of the Ant-decapitating flies, genus Apocephalus" ($270,000; 1994-1999; equivalent to today's CAREER grants) National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Award ($5,000; 1997) National Science Foundation Surveys and Inventories Grant "Arthropod Diversity in a lowland tropical forest" (Co- Principle investigator), ($300,000; 1997-2000) National Science Foundation Surveys and Inventories Grant DEB 9972024 "Insect Survey of a Megadiverse Country: Colombia." (Co-principal investigator with Dr. Mike Sharkey, University of Kentucky), ($260,000; 1999-2002) National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Award ($4,750; 1999) National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Award ($5,000; 2000) National Science Foundation Research Grant DEB-0090031 "Systematics of the bee-killing flies, genus Melaloncha" ($140,000; 2001-2004) National Science Foundation Surveys and Inventories Grant DEB-0205982 "Insect Survey of a Megadiverse Country: Colombia II." (Co-principal investigator with Dr. Mike Sharkey, University of Kentucky), ($350,000; 2002-2005) National Science Foundation Equipment Grant DBI0216506 "Scanning Electron Microscope for the LACM" (Co-Principle Investigator), ($200,000) National Science Foundation Research Experience for Undergraduates Award ($6,000; 2003) National Science Foundation Research Grant DEB-0315271 "Combined molecular and morphological phylogenetics of bee- killing flies, genus Melaloncha" (with CoPI Dr. Paul Smith, California State University, Bakersfield) ($105,219; 2003-2006). National Science Foundation Research Grant DEB-0516420 "Basal lineages of the Phoridae" (with CoPI Dr. Paul Smith, California State University, Bakersfield) ($487,111; 2005-2008). National Science Foundation Research Grant DEB-0542864 "TIGER: Thailand Inventory Group for Entomological Resources" (Co-principal investigator with Dr. Mike Sharkey, University of Kentucky), ($650,000, of which 90,050 is for LACM; 2006-2008) National Science Foundation Research Grant DEB-1025922 “REVSYS: Finishing the ant-decapitating flies, genus Apocephalus (Insecta:Diptera: Phoridae)” (with CoPI Dr. Paul Smith, California State University, Bakersfield) ($600,000; 2010-2013). National Science Foundation Research Grant DEB-1145890. “All Diptera Biodiversity Inventory of a Tropical Mid- Elevation Site.” ($900,000; 2012-2014). Research Publications Adams, B.J., E. Li, C.A. Bahlai, E.K. Meineke, T.P. McGlynn, and B.V. Brown. 2020. Local and landscape scale variables shape insect diversity in an urban biodiversity hotspot. Ecological Applications.. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2089 Ament, D. C., and B. V. Brown. 2016. Family Phoridae, pp. 414-451. In M. Wolff, S. S. Nihei and C. J. B. Carvalho [eds.], Catalogue of Diptera of Colombia. Zootaxa, 4122, 949 pp. Ament, D. C. & Brown, B. V. Caledophora (Diptera: Phoridae), a new genus from New Caledonia. Journal of Natural History (2017). DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2017.1390176. Amorim, D. S., V.S. Silva. and B.V. Brown. 2018. Puyehuemyia chandleri, gen. nov., sp. nov. (Diptera: Opetiidae): remnant of a Cretaceous biota in Chile. American Museum Novitates 3892, 1-27. Borkent, A., and B. V. Brown. 2015. How to inventory tropical flies (Diptera)-One of the megadiverse orders of insects. Zootaxa 3949: 301-322. Borkent, A., B. V. Brown, P. H. Adler, D. S. Amorim, K. Barber, D. Bickel, S. Boucher, S. E. Brooks, J. Burger, Z. L. Burington, R. S. Capellari, D. N. R. Costa, J. M. Cumming, G. Curler, C. W. Dick, J. H. Epler, E. Fisher, S. D. Gaimari, J. Gelhaus, D. A. Grimaldi, J. Hash, M. Hauser, H. Hippa, S. Ibáñez-Bernal, M. Jaschhof, E. P. Kameneva, P. H. Kerr, V. Korneyev, C. A. Korytkowski, G. Kung, G. M. Kvifte, O. Lonsdale, S. A. Marshall, W. N. Mathis, V. Michelsen, S. Naglis, A. L. Norrbom, S. Paiero, T. Pape, A. Pereira-Colavite, M. Pollet, S. Rochefort, A. Rung, J. B. Runyon, J. Savage, V. C. Silva, B. J. Sinclair, J. H. Skevington, J. O. Stireman III1, J. Swann, P. Vilkamaa, T. Wheeler, T. Whitworth, M. Wong, D. M. Wood, N. E. Woodley, T. Yau, T. J. Zavortink, and M. A. Zumbado. 2018. Remarkable fly (Diptera) diversity in a patch of Costa Rican cloud forest: why inventory is a vital science. Zootaxa 4402: 53-90. Brown, B.V. 1986. Striking sexual dimorphism and its taxonomic consequences among New World phorid flies (Diptera). Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington. 88: 787-788. Brown, B.V. 1987. Revision of the Gymnophora (Diptera: Phoridae) of the Holarctic Region: classification, reconstructed phylogeny and geographic history. Systematic Entomology. 12: 271304. Brown, B.V. 1987. Classification, reconstructed