As Evergreen faculty, my aim is to stimulate logical, creative, and critical thinking in an atmosphere that is both scientifically rigorous and respectful. The scientific process is a main theme in my teaching, and I strive to bring it to the foreground of students' worldviews, so that they become comfortable generating hypotheses for the patterns that they observe around them in the world.
Areas of teaching interest and background: Evolutionary biology, animal behavior, tropical ecology, herpetology, vertebrate zoology, field biology, epistemology, writing, physical anthropology.
Contracts & Internships
- I will not be sponsoring any contract or internship students in the Fall or Winter of the 2009-2010 academic year. I may be considering contracts and internships during the Spring of 2010.
Current Program (Fall 2009)
- Genes to Ecosystems, Fall 2009, with Donald Morisato & Dylan Fischer. This upper-division science program will explore several levels of biological organization, including the gene, genome, organ system, individual, population, species, community, and ecosystem.
Future (teaching) programs
- Development and Evolution: Form and Function through Time. Winter and Spring 2010, with Donald Morisato. This upper-division science program will the diversity of form and function through the lenses of evolution and development. The major taxonomic focus of the evolution-centered inquiry will be vertebrates.
Past programs
- Animal Behavior & Zoology, a new expanded year-long version of this upper-division science program. In Winter, there will be an international field component in Panama, with the option to stay in Panama while conducting research in Spring.
- Vertebrate Evolution, Spring 2008.
- Evolving Communication, a sophomore - senior investigation into human and animal communication, with Susan Fiksdal, Fall & Winter 2007 - 2008.
- Animal Behavior, an upper-division science program, Spring 2007.
- The Extraordinary Science of Everyday Experience: A Day in the Life, a Core program, with Bret Weinstein, Winter 2007.
- Understanding Species, a Core (first year) program, co-taught with Jack Longino, Fall 2006.
- Population, Energy, & Resources (Masters in Environmental Studies (MES) core program), Winter 2006.
- Vertebrate Evolution, Fall 2005.
- Animal Behavior, Spring 2005.
- Forests through Time and Space: Introduction to Environmental Studies, with Paul Przybylowicz, FW 2004 - 2005.
- Fishes, Frogs and Forests, with Amy Cook, FW 2003 - 2004.
- Animal Behavior, Spring 2003.
- Freshwater Ecology, with Rob Cole, FW 2002 - 2003.
