Current Faculty
Below is an alphabetical listing of Current Biology faculty. Please note you can search by first or last name. All of Biology faculty are affiliated with at least one of the four interdisciplinary graduate programs and you can limit your search to only those faculty affiliated with a particular program. In addition, you can search for only those faculty who can chair graduate student Masters or PhD committees. And you can combine these criteria to further limit your search.
| Name | Title | Research Interests |
|---|---|---|
| Lynn Adler |
Professor |
Ecology and Evolution of Insect-Plant Interactions |
| R. Craig Albertson |
Associate Professor |
Evolutionary Developmental Biology |
| Peter Alpert |
Professor |
Plant Ecology and Conservation Science |
| Courtney C. Babbitt |
Assistant Professor of Biology and Commonwealth Honors College |
Evolutionary Genomics |
| Madelaine E. Bartlett |
Assistant Professor |
Diversity of Shape and form present in flowering plants. |
| Tobias Baskin |
Professor |
Regulation of Plant Morphogenesis During Growth & Development |
| Magdalena Bezanilla |
Professor |
Molecular Mechanisms Behind Plant Cell Growth |
| Eric L. Bittman |
Professor |
Circadian Rhythms, Reproduction, and Seasonal Changes in Brain Function |
| Jeffrey Blanchard |
Associate Professor |
Anaerobic Microbiology, Microbial Ecology and Evolution, Genomics, Bioinformatics |
| Steven D. Brewer |
Senior Lecturer II |
Science Education; Instructional Technology |
| Bruce Byers |
Associate Professor |
Songbird Vocalizations |
| Ana L. Caicedo |
Associate Professor |
Plant Molecular Evolution and Evolutionary Genomics |
| Elizabeth A. Connor |
Associate Professor |
Neuromuscular Junction: Development and Maintenance |
| Cristina Cox Fernandes |
Lecturer/Adjunct Research Associate Professor |
Diversity of Amazonian Fishes |
| Gerald B. Downes |
Associate Professor |
Development and Function of Spinal Cord Networks |
| Elizabeth R. Dumont |
Professor |
Vertebrate Morphology |
| Laura I. Francis |
Lecturer |
Molecular Mechanisms |
| Alexander R. Gerson |
Assistant Professor |
Integrative Eco-physiology - Environmental Physiology of Birds |
| Judith E. Goodenough |
Senior Lecturer II |
Circadian phototactic rhythm in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii |
| Samuel P. Hazen |
Associate Professor |
Regulatory Networks and Natural Variation in Plant Cell Wall Biosynthesis |
| Christiane I. Healey |
Lecturer |
Ecology, Evolution, and Animal Behavior |
| Peter W. Houlihan |
Senior Lecturer |
Animal Behavior, Vertebrate Ecology, and Conservation Biology |
| Duncan J. Irschick |
Professor |
Functional Morphology, Evolution, and Behavioral Ecology |
| Abigail Jensen |
Associate Professor |
Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms of Vertebrate Retinal Development and Retinal Disease |
| Rolf O. Karlstrom |
Professor |
Developmental Neurobiology: Axon Guidance and Forebrain Patterning |
| Joohyun Lee |
Research Assistant Professor |
Epigenetic regulation of plant-environment interactions Proper timing of the flowering transition in plants is a key developmental process necessary for adaptation to various ecological niches. Many plant species require exposure to the prolonged cold of winter to flower, a temperature-sensing process referred to as vernalization. The cold memory is maintained mitotically and thus is an epigenetic switch that promotes flowering in spring. The cold-induced epigenetic switch is an important factor that affects the yield of various agricultural crops, because certain plants cannot flower at the proper time without vernalization. In Arabidopsis thaliana, prolonged exposure to cold epigenetically represses the expression of a floral repressor, FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC). This is achieved by the increase of the evolutionary conserved Polycomb Repressive Complex2 (PRC2)-mediated epigenetic silencing mark, trimethylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me3), at FLC. However, how plants sense the prolonged cold and measure the duration of cold exposure are not known. Therefore, my research aims to identify and characterize the network of genes controlling a cold-induced epigenetic switch in plants. |
| Wei-Lih Lee |
Associate Professor |
Mechanism of Dynein-Mediated Nuclear Migration and Spindle Positioning |
| Geng-Lin Li |
Assistant Professor |
Synaptic Transmission |
| Kari D. Loomis |
Lecturer |
This page is under construction. |
| Thomas J. Maresca |
Assistant Professor |
Cell Division |
| Michele Markstein |
Assistant Professor |
Stem Cells and Cancer |
| Benjamin Normark |
Professor |
Evolution of Unusual Genetic Systems |
| W. Brian O'Connor |
Emeritus Professor |
|
| Randall W. Phillis |
Associate Professor |
Neurogenetics of Drosophila |
| Jeffrey Podos |
Professor |
Mechanisms and Evolution of Vertebrate Behavior; Bioacoustics |
| Adam Porter |
Associate Professor |
Evolutionary Biology; Computational Biology |
| Alan M. Richmond |
Senior Lecturer II/Curator |
Herpetology |
| Margaret Riley |
Professor |
Microbial Molecular Evolution and Ecology |
| Caleb M. Rounds |
Lecturer |
Plant Physiology |
| Lawrence M. Schwartz |
Eugene M. and Ronnie Isenberg Professor of Integrated Science |
Programmed Cell Death |
| Karen B. Searcy |
Adjunct Research Assistant Professor |
Plant Reproductive Ecology |
| Tristram G. Seidler |
Extension Assistant Professor/Curator |
Plant Diversity, Ecology, and Conservation |
| Elena Vazey |
Assistant Professor |
Neuromodulation and Neurodegeneration |
| Patricia Wadsworth |
Professor |
Cell Division and Cytoskeleton |
| Elsbeth Walker |
Professor |
Plant Development and Molecular Genetics |
| R. Thomas Zoeller |
Professor |
Thyroid Hormone Action on Brain Development and Environmental Disruption of Thyroid Hormone Action |
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