This work unfolded as a pursuit for deeper understanding of mosquito physiology and mosquito-pathogen interactions, which inspired a research quest for novel vector control strategies. The mosquito, Aedes triseriatus is a primary vector for La Crosse virus, which causes a deadly pediatric encephalitis in Midwestern and Mid-Atlantic states in the U.S. The virus is transmitted both horizontally and vertically from female mosquito to progeny. To understand how this virus thwarts cell death events in developing follicles and embryos, we undertook a characterization of oogenesis to include the requisite cell death events that occur as a function of nutritional limitations (follicular atresia), oocyte development and maturation (nurse cell death and death of the follicular epithelium). The results of this work are presented in Chapter 2. These studies inspired an exploration of the role of cell death genes on cell and organismal survival. In particular, targeting the Inhibitor of Apoptosis 1 (IAP1) gene relieves the suppression of apoptosis and produces a rapidly lethal phenotype (Chapter 4). Exploring the effect of IAP1 silencing in multiple mosquito vector species revealed that even if an RNAi trigger was designed to comparable regions of the target gene, the resulting phenotype differed dramatically depending on RNAi design, species, and delivery method (Chapter 4). This variation became a curiosity resulting in work evaluating the mosquito RNAi response. We used a two-pronged approach to investigate further: 1) a meta-analysis of experimental parameters from RNAi studies in the published literature (Chapter 5), and 2) in vitro and in vivo analysis RNAi trigger distribution to understand whether tissues or environments in the mosquito are inherently recalcitrant to RNAi (Chapter 3). To translate this work into a field applicable and inexpensive field-applicable tool, we tested the possibility of using the Attractive Toxic Sugar Bait (ATSB) approach for per os delivery of an RNAi trigger and, in the process, found that sugar composition alone can enhance ATSB toxicity (Chapter 6). This dissertation work produced informative RNAi design studies and tools that address the limitations and strengths of RNAi as a basic molecular biology tool as well as an applied vector control approach.