My Courses

Evolution - IB302

This is the opening shot to a movie made by a former student dispelling a misconception in Evolution. It was a finalist at the 2016 Evolution Film Festival!

Evolution (IB302) is a required course for our majors that students also take in their second year. This course emphasizes the idea that evolution is the uniting principle of all of biology.  The course covers the generation of genetic variation, within and among population patterns, drift and inbreeding, natural and sexual selection, speciation, and macroevolutionary patterns.  Students also create outreach projects that dispel a common misconception in evolution.  I co-teach the course with the redoubtable Dr. Stewart Berlocher.

Ichthyology - IB463

Student with a flathead catfish.

Ichthyology (IB463) is an upper-level course that I teach in the fall of even years.  The course has three main goals.  First, students should know their fishes!  Second, students should understand the various physiological tricks fish use to survive in different aquatic habitats. Third, students should understand the important ecological and evolutionary processes that affect fish distribution, abundance, and biodiversity.  The course has a significant field component.

The Analysis of Biological Data in R - IB546

The Analysis of Biological Data in R (IB546) is a graduate level course that focuses on the application of statistical and graphical tools in ecology and evolution.  The course is not a traditional statistics course.  Rather, this is a course that requires students to conduct various types of analyses using the R computer language.  There is a heavy emphasis on graphing.  We also try to cover as many basic statistical methods as possible so that students have a 'foothold' in numerous statistical approaches to data.  We rely heavily on the most excellent textbook and web resources created by Dolph Schluter and Mike Whitlock.