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"I have to be careful what I wish for," says Merry Holliday-Hanson, deputy public health officer with the El Dorado County Public Health Department (EDCPHD), and alumna of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. "Just when I think that one fire has been put out, another one pops up." Since 2002, Holliday-Hanson has worked for EDCPHD as head of their newly established bioterrorism preparedness program. Holliday-Hanson comments on how her department dealt with an outbreak of influenza in December 2003. "It is no exaggeration to say that our office phone was ringing every ten seconds." For a fast paced period of about two weeks, her department received updated information about the flu from the Department of Health Services and other sources, and quickly processed and disseminated this information to public health workers and the media.

"It was a vicious cycle," she says. "The more information we gave the media, the more they wanted to know."

Then, in mid-December, came the first reports of Mad Cow Disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)) in the United States. "Finally," she thought, "the media will focus their attention elsewhere, and things will get back to normal". But she spoke too soon. On December 23, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) issued a Class II recall for meat processed the same day as the BSE-diagnosed cow from Washington State. Three restaurants in El Dorado County had deliveries of ground beef that were identified as part of the meat in question.

In the few years since its inception, the EDCPHD bioterrorism program has expanded quickly to cover a number of other public health issues. In addition to preparing for potential bioterrorism, her division now covers epidemiology, communicable disease, county vital statistics, health information, and risk communication. In recent weeks, she helped write a regional disaster plan with several other counties, met with health officials and practitioners to prepare for potential outbreaks of pertussis and tuberculosis, and is assessing the public health infrastructure in relation to its capabilities in everyday and emergency situations.

Merry Holliday-Hanson received a PhD degree from the Department of Entomology at UC Davis in 1997, and earned a concurrent masters degree in epidemiology in 1995. Her doctoral research in medical entomology was on the energetic costs of reproduction in Anopheles freeborni, under the direction of Professor Bob Washino. Upon completing her degree, she accepted a research fellowship with the California Epidemiologic Investigation Service to study shaken baby syndrome.

"It was a big jump from mosquitoes to child abuse," she says. "And even though I am no longer studying entomology, my degree is very important to my work because I gained some very useful analytical skills. I use those skills every day to investigate a problem, break it down, and learn what needs to be done to solve the problem, or alternatively, to gather together all of the pieces of a puzzle and see the big picture."

Despite her busy schedule, Holliday-Hanson still finds ways to enjoy entomology on a personal level. Perhaps because of her positive experiences with the Adopt-A-Scientist program while in graduate school at UC Davis, she enjoys making presentations about entomology to schoolchildren by visiting the classrooms of her own children.

Her favorite memories about graduate school at UC Davis? "I think I appreciate most the socialization and the great feeling of community in the department. I fondly remember eating lunch with my colleagues on the quad on sunny days."