Lawrence Michael Hanks (born 1953) is an American entomologist and professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
His Ph.D. supervisor was Robert Denno.
[1] As a graduate student, he became curious as to why trees in woodland settings were almost free of a pest that was infecting numerous trees in urban landscapes.
He subsequently published a study on the subject with Clifford Sadof of Purdue University, which indicated that woodlands contained natural organisms that preyed on the tree pests.
[2][3] He completed his post-doctorate at the University of California, Riverside, where he studied ways to combat the effects of a pest borer beetle on eucalyptus trees.