Education:

Ph.D. University of Notre Dame, Dissertation topic:  Hemolymph Lipoprotein Ice Nucleators and Their Role in Insect Cold Hardiness. 

B.S.  Zoology, University of Florida

Dr. Neven was an NIH Fellow in the department of Cardiology at the University of Chicago from 1987 to 1989 where she helped describe the molecular genetics of familial hypercholesterolemia in Rhesus monkeys, a model for human hypercholesterolemia. From 1989 to 1992 Dr. Neven was a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Charles Guy in the Department of Environmental Horticulture at the University of Florida where she described several proteins and genes related to plant stress responses.

In 1992 Dr. Neven joined the USDA-ARS laboratory in Yakima, Washington as a Research Entomologist working on the development of non-chemical quarantine treatments for control of pests in deciduous tree fruits. She has worked with temperature extremes, controlled atmospheres, irradiation, fungal fumigants, and systems approach. Dr. Neven is currently working in the area of Regulatory Entomology in respect of using ecological niche modeling to predict the potential spread of invasive species into deciduous tree fruits. Dr. Neven served on the North American Plant Protection Organization Fruit Panel as an expert as well as the vice-chair and chair. Dr. Neven has also served as a consultant to the International Atomic Energy Association-Food and Agriculture Organization (IAEA-FAO) codling moth sterile insect technique collaborative working group. She is also a member of the International Plant Protection Convention Postharvest Management Research Group, which advises the IPPC in current research on the development of non-chemical postharvest pest control. Dr. Neven is also an adjunct Professor at the Washington State University Department of Entomology and Central Washington University Biological Sciences Department.

Dr Neven has published over 110 papers on topics spanning environmental physiology, lipoprotein biochemistry and molecular biology, postharvest quarantine treatments, insect respiratory and thermal physiology, insect transgenesis, and ecological niche modeling. Dr. Neven has received over $6 M in grants from various International, National, and commodity group funding agencies. Dr. Neven was the recipient of the USDA-ARS-PWA Early Career Scientist award in 1999.