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NCUR 2026 photos

Talk: session 172, Environmental Science and Sustainability, presentation 908 · Poster 1203 · Greater Richmond Convention Center

I · Arrival

  • Torben Heinbockel stands with his arms spread under an arched banner reading Welcome to NCUR26 @Richmond, Engaging minds. Empowering students. The left column carries the Zora Neale Hurston quote and CUR.org/NCUR. The right column lists exhibitors and thanks VCU and VisitRichmondVA.com. Attendees stand in the bright atrium behind him.
    Under the welcome arch. The column quotes Zora Neale Hurston: “Research is formalized curiosity.”
  • Torben Heinbockel smiles and points to the list where Towson University appears, on a tall column headed Take a selfie, Tag us, Share and Go explore our exhibitors. VCU and VisitRichmondVA.com logos are at the bottom, and the convention center atrium and balconies are behind him.
    Towson University on the list of exhibitors.

II · The talk

  • An empty wooden podium with a Greater Richmond Convention Center sign stands in a carpeted room. To its right is a screen, partly out of frame, showing the talk's title slide with the lines Presented By: Torben Heinbockel and Mentor: Dr. Vonnie Shields.
    The session room, with the title slide on screen.
  • Torben Heinbockel speaks at the Greater Richmond Convention Center podium and gestures with an open hand toward a screen showing the title slide Sustainable Control of Drosophila suzukii Using Methyl Benzoate Analogs as Repellent Agents. The slide credits Torben Heinbockel, Department of Biological Sciences, Towson University, as presenter and Dr. Vonnie Shields as mentor.
    The title slide, with Dr. Vonnie Shields as mentor.
  • Torben Heinbockel, in three-quarter profile, points at a photo of damaged fruit on a slide titled Why Does SWD Pose Risks to Food Security?. The slide also shows a fly and a row of fruit-damage photos linked by arrows.
    Why the fly matters: females lay eggs inside ripening fruit.
  • A low-angle, full-length view of Torben Heinbockel speaking beside a screen showing the slide Why Does SWD Pose Risks to Food Security?, with one hand at his chest. The slide shows a fly and photos of damaged fruit.
    Talking through the food-security slide.
  • Torben Heinbockel stands to the right of a screen and speaks to the room with both hands open. The slide, Methyl Benzoate and Its Limitations, shows the ring structure of methyl benzoate, the formula C6H5-C(=O)-OCH3, notes that it is an aromatic ester with a sweet, fruity, floral odor, and says it was insufficient as a control strategy alone.
    Methyl benzoate, the starting point, and its limits.
  • Torben Heinbockel speaks at the podium with one hand raised in a loose fist. The screen beside him reads Hypothesis: chemical structural analogs of MB will serve as more potent spatial repellents than MB. Under Research Methods it says that three-day-old SWD flies were anesthetized and sorted, 24 female flies were selected and placed in a glass open-ended tube, and test or control compounds were pipetted onto filter paper at the two ends.
    The hypothesis, and the two-choice tube used to test it.
  • A close view of Torben Heinbockel speaking at the Greater Richmond Convention Center podium, mouth open mid-word and one hand raised, wearing his conference badge on a yellow lanyard.
    Mid-talk at the podium.

III · Close

  • Torben Heinbockel smiles and rests one hand on a tall white NCUR26 @Richmond banner reading Welcome to the home of student presenters, #NCUR2026, CUR.org/NCUR. He stands on a mezzanine walkway with brick pillars and hanging City of Richmond and county banners behind him.
    At the NCUR 2026 welcome banner.

  • Also at NCUR 2026 · poster 1203

    Behavioral olfactory responses of crickets to essential oils

    The house cricket study, by Torben Heinbockel and Dr. Shields, in poster session 011.

Student awards

Talks and posters

Talks and posters by lab members, 2023 to 2026. Lab members are in bold.

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2023