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Vincent Resh is a world-renowned aquatic entomologist and ecologist, and an award-winning professor in UC Berkeley's Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, whose decades of humanitarian work, research, and leadership in the Onchocerciasis Control Programme helped protect tens of millions of people from river blindness in sub-Saharan West Africa. Resh was born September 14, 1945, in Greenwich Village, New York City, and grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. He earned a B.S. from Georgetown University in 1967, a M.S. from Niagara University in 1969, and his Ph.D. in 1973 in the Water Resources Laboratory at the University of Louisville. His research examined the evolutionary ecology of aquatic insects, and he developed approaches for the biological monitoring of water quality and the control of water-borne disease vectors. Resh was an assistant professor at Ball State University from 1973 to 1975. He joined the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1975, mentored scores of graduate students, and taught over 20,000 Berkeley undergraduates from 1988 to 2011 in his General Biology course. From 1996 to 2001, Resh was Director of the Richard B. Gump South Pacific Biological Research Station on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia. From 1995 to 2009, he served on The Expert Advisory Committee and chaired the Ecological Group in the World Bank and World Health Organization's Onchocerciasis (River Blindness) Control Programme in West Africa. From 2002 to 2012, he advised the Mekong River Commission on the effects of large Chinese dams by conducting studies throughout Southeast Asia. He was involved in many international aid projects, taught courses at universities throughout the world, lectured across all seven continents, and consulted on numerous science advisory boards and projects. Resh received the Berkeley Citation upon retiring in 2015. His son Jon and stepson Jeff were born in 1970. He is married to Cheryl Haigh Resh. In this oral history, Resh provides details on all the above, along with stories of his family and personal life, lessons from his academic mentors and collaborators, accounts from his own teaching career, as well as stories from his decades of domestic and international teaching, service, research, and travel.

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