Munstermann joined UMM in the fall of 1960 and managed to major in psychology and minor in biology and chemistry, as well as working as a dorm counselor, dishwasher, and student government president.
After graduating in 1964, he joined the Peace Corps to teach tropical biology in western Ghana and had his first exposure to the tropical insect environment. After a year at U of M, Minneapolis, and a two-year stint in the U.S. Army, he lived in Japan for two years studying Japanese language and culture. He returned to the USA to the University of Notre Dame, in an NIH-funded graduate program in mosquito genetics, ecology and evolution.
After 20 years at Notre Dame as a graduate student and research faculty, he was invited to Yale School of Medicine as a research scientist to work on the biology of South American phlebotomine sand flies. Currently, he holds a joint appointment at the Yale School of Public Health as a senior research scientist and the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History as Curator of Entomology.
In the course of his career, he has researched and collected insects with the scientists of 58 countries on six continents, resulting in 106 research and book chapter publications with an additional 115 abstracts associated with presentations at national and international professional meetings. His photographs have appeared in 54 newspapers, textbooks, or popular journals. He rode motorcycles for 30 years, but, finally, at age 55, after his two kids were born, he bought a pick-up truck.
