Faculty

Onesmo Balemba, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
My research focuses on the pathophysiology of diseases that affect gastrointestinal (GI) functions. My aim is to gain a better understanding of neuromuscular and immune system host responses in diabetes, and infectious diarrhea, and therapeutic strategies for these conditions.
» View Onesmo Balemba's profile

Celeste Brown, Ph.D.
Research Professor
Dr. Celeste Brown has two research areas, how gene regulation changes in response to selection, and the evolution of disordered proteins. The link between these two disparate areas is that often proteins involved in gene regulation are disordered. The gene regulation studies involve laboratory-based research and the disordered protein studies involve bioinformatics approaches.
» View Celeste Brown's profile

John A. Byers, Ph.D.
Professor
I am an animal behaviorist primarily interested in behavioral development, play, sexual selection and female mate choice. I am a member and Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society. I maintain a longitudinal study of a population of pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) on the National Bison Range in western Montana. Projects now underway in this study, which has run since 1981, are measurement of costs and benefits of female mate choice and evaluation of the fitness consequences of inbreeding in the population.
» View John Byers' profile

Joseph G. Cloud, Ph.D.
Professor and Interim WWAMI Director
Projects in Dr. Cloud’s research program are primarily directed toward understanding germ cell development in salmonids and the establishment of a germplasm repository for threatened and endangered fish. Ongoing research projects in the lab include the cryopreservation and transplantation of salmonid gonads and the isolation, culture, and reestablishment of germinal stem cells. Additionally, sperm collected from numerous populations of Snake River chinook salmon and steelhead are cryopreserved and stored annually.
» View Joseph Cloud's profile

Douglas G. Cole, Ph.D.
Professor and Associate Chair
Research interests: Intraflagellar Transport, IFT may transport axonemal precursors, IFT polypeptides, IFT raft architecture, Kinesin-II, the anterograde IFT motor
» View Doug Cole's profile

Stacey Dunn, Ph.D.
Instructor
Dr. Dunn teaches introductory biology for science majors: BIOL 115 - Cells & the Evolution of Life, and BIOL 116 - Organisms & Environments. Her background is in animal behavior, sexual selection, inbreeding and female mate choice.
» See Stacey Dunn's profile

Larry J. Forney, Ph.D.
University Distinguished Professor
Director of IBEST
The research done in Dr. Larry Forney’s laboratory centers on the diversity and distribution of prokaryotes. Both field and laboratory studies are done to explore the temporal and spatial patterns of community diversity, as well as factors that influence the dynamics of inter- and intra-species competition. In addition research is done to understand how spatial structure and the resulting environmental gradients influence the tempo and trajectory of adaptive radiations in bacterial species and the maintenance of diversity. Most of these studies are highly interdisciplinary in nature, and done in collaboration with mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, geologists, environmental engineers, physicians, and clinical scientists.
» View Larry Forney's profile

Elizabeth (Lee) Ann Fortunato, Ph.D.
Professor
Research interests: Understanding the mechanism behind the development of morbidity and mortality in infants congenitally infected with human cytomegalovirus (HCMV)
» View Elizabeth (Lee) Fortunato's profile

James A. Foster, Ph.D.
Professor
Dr. Foster’s current research is focused on characterizing evolutionarily permissible ecological structures in microbial ecosystems and on developing bioinformatics for very large sequence datasets. He continues to examine simulations of evolutionary processes to design complex artifacts and optimize functions. He works in close collaboration with biologists, statisticians, mathematicians, and computer scientists.
» View James Foster's profile

Peter G. Fuerst, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
My lab is attempting to identify and understand the molecular cues that promote development of the nervous system by studying mice that have mutations in recognition factors and that express fluorescent markers that label specific neural cell types.
» View Peter Fuerst's profile

Lisa Harmon
Instructor
Lisa Harmon teaches the Biology and Society course for nonmajors. She is also the campus advisor of NSCS.
» View Lisa Harmon's profile

Luke J. Harmon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Our research investigates ecological and evolutionary aspects of adaptive radiations. Current projects span a wide range of taxa and time scales, including adaptive radiation in E. coli biofilms, evolution of island lizards in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean, and macroevolutionary dynamics of vertebrates. You will find more information about all of these projects on the research and publications pages.
» View Luke Harmon's profile

Patricia L. Hartzell, Ph.D.
Professor
Research interests: The mechanisms by which the complex prokaryote, Myxococcus xanthus, coordinates two independent motility systems during growth and development.
» View Patricia Hartzell's profile

Candi Heimgartner
Instructor
I teach Biology 120-Human Anatomy during fall and summer semesters and Biology 121-Human Physiology during spring semester as well as coordinate numerous teaching assistants assisting in these courses and enrolled in practicum courses Biology 405 and Biology 408. I strive to keep abreast of the latest research and teaching trends in Human A&P by being a member of HAPS and publishing laboratory teaching manuals involving Human A&P exercises for use in an undergraduate cadaver and Vernier based laboratory through Kendall Hunt Publishing. My teaching goal is to involve students in the exciting world of Human A&P by designing a curriculum and presentation style that is dynamic and relevant to students' everyday life. In 2008, I was nominated for the College of Science Teaching Excellence Award and received ASUI's Outstanding Faculty Award in 2013 based on thoughtful recommendations from my students and teaching assistants.
» View Candi Heimgartner's profile

Paul Hohenlohe, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Our research focuses on the genomic architecture of evolving populations, developing sophisticated theory and analytical tools to harness the power of modern DNA sequencing technology. We address basic questions of evolutionary biology as well as applications to conservation and cancer biology.
» View Paul Hohenlohe's profile

Jill L. Johnson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Research interests: Role of molecular chaperones in the cell, especially the study of a chaperone called Hsp90 (90 kDa heat shock protein).
» View Jill Johnson's profile

Craig P. McGowan. Ph.D
Assistant Professor
My research interests are centered on understanding the relationships between the musculoskeletal morphology of terrestrial vertebrate animals (including humans) and the biomechanics and neural control of locomotor performance.
» See Craig McGowan's profile

Craig Miller, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
» View Craig Miller's profile

Tanya Miura, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Research interests: Regulation of the Immune Response to Coronavirus Infection in the Lung.
» View Tanya Miura's profile

James J. Nagler, Ph.D.
Professor and Interim Chair
Associate Director of WSU/UI Center for Reproductive Biology
The Nagler laboratory studies the effect of environmental factors, such as contaminants, photoperiod and diet on the reproductive biology of salmonid fishes.
» View James Nagler's profile

Scott L. Nuismer, Ph.D.
Professor
My research focuses on the ecology and evolution of species interactions. The overall aim is to better understand how coevolution shapes patterns of biodiversity and the geographic distributions of interacting species. Work in my lab addresses these issues with a combination of mathematical modeling and field studies.
» View Scott Nuismer's profile

Barrie Robison, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
My general research interests lie at the interface between genomics, evolutionary biology, and fisheries biology. Specific areas of research emphasis in my lab include the genetic architecture of complex traits, the evolution of locally adaptive phenotypes, and genomic analysis of behavioral variation in fish. I employ two study systems to investigate these issues, the rainbow trout and the zebrafish.
» View Barrie Robison's profile

Deborah Stenkamp, Ph.D.
Professor
Stenkamp’s research interests center on the examination of cellular and molecular mechanisms of vertebrate retinal development and regeneration, with a specific focus on photoreceptor differentiation, using zebrafish as the primary experimental model.
» View Deborah Stenkamp's profile

John "Jack" M. Sullivan, Ph.D.
Professor
Our understanding of the processes of nucleotide substitution (DNA sequence evolution) has been expanding greatly over the last 10 years. Furthermore, it has become apparent that ignoring such processes as heterogeneity of base composition, substitution pattern, and rate variation among nucleotide sites can compromise attempts to estimate phylogeny from DNA sequence data. Therefore, model-based analyses of DNA sequence data have become increasingly wide spread because such approaches afford the investigator the opportunity to account for such processes explicitly.
» View Jack Sullivan's profile

Eva Top, Ph.D.
Professor
Director of BCB
My research is currently focused on the evolution and ecology of plasmids that transfer to and replicate in a broad range of bacteria. Plasmids are mobile genetic elements found in most bacteria. Because they readily transfer between different types of bacteria under natural conditions, they play an important role in rapid bacterial adaptation to changing environments. A good example is the current epidemic of multiple antibiotic resistance in human pathogens, which is largely due to the spread of multi-drug resistance plasmids. Although plasmid-mediated gene transfer is now recognized as a key mechanism in the alarming rise of antibiotic resistance, little is known about their host range, their ability to invade bacterial populations in the absence of selection, and their genetic diversity. We are addressing these questions using various Proteobacteria and plasmids as model systems.
» View Eva Top's profile

Holly A. Wichman, Ph.D.
University Distinguished Professor
The Wichman Lab studies viruses and their subcellular relatives, transposable elements. These two lines of research are united by a molecular approach and a strong evolutionary context. L1 elements have been active in mammals for over 150 million years and make up about 20% of the genome. Most of the copies in the genome are ancient molecular fossils, so it is a challenge to sift through all of the old copies to find those that have been recently active.
» View Holly Wichman's profile