Colorado State University

An ecologist by training I teach LIFE103, BZ220, LIFE320, BZ348, ECOL505, GES101, and GES520. I hold a joint appointment with the Department of Biology and the School of Global Environmental Sustainability

Boring school stuff: I am affiliate faculty with the One Health Institute, the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology and the Impact MBA program. 

Less boring science stuff: I have looked into a nuclear reactor and seen cherenkov radiation, demonstrated the doppler effect in a heavy ion accelerator, I knew the discoverer of Pluto, met two astronauts who walked on the moon, was on the launch team for the first three GPS satellite launches, conducted field work in shark infested waters, worked on ecological genetics at the largest seed bank in the world, put grasshoppers in a wind tunnel (to measure how cannibalistic they are - or really to measure whether canola oil or olive oil smells more like a dead grasshopper) and have an Erdos number of 4.

Wildly cool stuff: There are more cells in you that are not you than are you (there are 10x as many bacterial cells in a human than there are cells from the human). Tapeworm cancers can cause tumors made from tapeworm cells to grow in humans. Horned lizards can shoot blood from their eyes. Cymothoa exigua is the only known parasite that replaces a functioning organ in its host.

Some other things about me - I ran for political office once; I chaired the Environmental Advisory Board for Larimer County; I coached two teams to nationals in the Science Bowl; .I attended the Paris Climate Talks (COP21).

One of my goals is to have an Erdos-Bacon number.

Remember, no matter how bad your day is, at least you are not a detritivore.