Faculty

Onesmo Balemba, Ph.D.
Associate 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Martina Ederer, Ph.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor

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.
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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)
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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.
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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.
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Lisa Harmon
Instructor
Lisa Harmon teaches the Biology and Society course for nonmajors. She is also the campus advisor of NSCS.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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Chris Marx, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
My research interests are at the intersection of microbial physiology and evolution, and span from experimental and computational approaches. On one hand, we use experimental evolution as a tool to uncover novel genes and functions. On the other, we apply systems-level models of metabolism to try to predict genetic interactions, optimal phenotypes, and evolutionary outcomes of evolving populations.
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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.
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Craig Miller, Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor
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Tanya Miura, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Research interests: Regulation of the Immune Response to Coronavirus Infection in the Lung.
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James J. Nagler, Ph.D.
Professor and 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.
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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.
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Christine E. Parent, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Research in the Parent lab centers on the evolutionary process of diversification in lineages exposed to novel environment. Our general approach is to (1) observe present-day patterns of biodiversity to infer past evolutionary processes, and (2) test those processes with manipulative experiments in laboratory populations. We use field observations, comparative analyses, laboratory experiments, molecular phylogenetics, and integrate them with theoretical modeling. Island systems (natural or experimental) are the main focus of our research attention.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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David C. Tank, Ph. D.
Associate Professor and Director, Stillinger Herbarium
I am a plant systematist and am broadly interested in the investigation of the patterns and processes that shape plant biodiversity. In general, my research is focused on the use of molecular methods to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships in plants and the application of phylogenetic methods to understand plant evolution. The evolutionary causes and consequences of processes such as hybridization, polyploidy, pollination biology, biogeography, rapid diversification, and niche evolution can only be understood in light of a robust phylogenetic hypothesis, and these hypotheses are a necessary component of modern taxonomic treatments and classification systems. Research in my lab is directed at multiple levels of plant phylogeny and current projects range from comparative phylogeography of the Pacific Northwest inland rainforest communities, to the study of species boundaries and diversification among very closely related species, to patterns of diversification among some of the major lineages comprising the plant tree of life.
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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.
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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.
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