Born and raised in Ankara, Turkey, Dr. Isik Unlu (pronounced Ish-ick Ooh-n-luu) earned a B.S. in biology and an M.S. in ecology from Hacettepe University. She conducted research and taught in Turkey, Israel, and Germany before moving to the U.S. in 2003 to pursue a Ph.D. in medical entomology at Louisiana State University, which she completed in 2007.

After her Ph.D., she worked as an adjunct professor at Rutgers University and conducted postdoctoral research with Randy Gaugler and Dina Fonseca. She later joined Mercer County Mosquito Control, first as an entomologist and then as superintendent. Dr. Unlu has more than 20 years of experience studying and managing insects that spread disease, doing surveillance, analyzing blood meals, and researching the patterns of vector-borne illnesses.

Her work appears in nearly 60 publications on topics such as mosquito biology, host preferences, surveillance, disease patterns, and control methods. She has published in places such as the Journal of Medical Entomology and PLOS ONE.

She has presented at over 90 conferences and panels, including meetings of the American Mosquito Control Association and the New Jersey Mosquito Control Association (NJMCA), as well as international events such as the Dhaka North City Corporation in Bangladesh.

Dr. Unlu has served on advisory groups including the NJMCA advisory board, the AMCA Scientific Advisory Board and Best Management Practices panel, and the QualityPro Public Health Task Force Mosquito Working Group.

She is currently the Executive Director of Indian River Mosquito Control District, supervising more than 35 staff and leading in-house research on product resistance.

Her awards include a Rutgers Team Excellence award, a Louisiana Mosquito Control Association research fund award, an AMCA Presidential Citation, and an Appreciation of Service award from the Society for Vector Ecology.

Dr. Unlu lives in Vero Beach, FL, and is a single mother of two sons, Berk and Evren.