Extension Assistant Professor Olga Kostromytska received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Entomology from the University of Florida, specializing in turf entomology. Since 2010, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Rutgers University, focusing on biology and management of annual bluegrass weevil, a destructive pest on golf courses. Some of the projects she worked on were host plant resistance, insecticide resistance, biocontrol options, chemical ecology and reproductive diapause of annual bluegrass weevil. Other research interests include biology and management of white grubs, mole crickets, billbugs, chinchbugs, cutworms. She joined University of Massachusetts in September 2018, as an Extension faculty member. Her research program is centered on gaining better understanding of biology and ecology of turfgrass insect pests, developing sustainable management strategies with reduced insecticide applications, and investigating insecticide resistance mechanisms and developing resistance mitigation programs. The main goals of her extension program are to identify and solve insect pest problems and provide solid and rigorous research foundation to the practical problem solutions.
