Faculty
OEB brings together more than 75 faculty, providing critical mass needed for effective graduate training. Our faculty are drawn from 10 departments at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and from across the Five College System (Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, and Smith Colleges), as well as from off-campus institutions. OEB faculty are engaged in cutting edge research, with research clusters in four broad areas:
Animal Behavior
Behavioral ecology, communication, learning
Ecology
Community ecology, population ecology, landscape ecology, conservation biology
Evolutionary Biology
Evolution, phylogenetics, population genetics, molecular evolution
Organismal Biology
Physiology, morphology, paleontology, developmental biology
All OEB faculty are listed below. To help applicants to our graduate program locate a faculty sponsor, the faculty list can be filtered by four broad research areas. A list of faculty who are activiely seeking graduate students can be found HERE
| Name | Research Interests |
|---|---|
|
Lynn Adler Professor, Biology |
Ecology and evolution of insect-plant interactions |
|
R. Craig Albertson Professor, Biology |
Evolutionary Developmental Biology |
|
Dominique R. Alfandari Professor of Developmental Biology, Veterinary and Animal Sciences |
Cell migration in Developmental systems |
|
Courtney C. Babbitt Associate Professor, Biology |
Evolutionary Genomics |
|
Madelaine Bartlett Associate Professor, Biology |
Evolution of plant development; Molecular evolution |
|
Jesse Bellemare Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Smith College |
Plant ecology, biogeography and evolution |
|
Jeffrey L. Blanchard Associate Professor, Biology |
Microbial cellular and community networks; influence of environmental change on the evolution of molecular processes; systems biology; bioinformatics |
|
Patricia Brennan Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Mt. Holyoke College |
Evolutionary consequences of interactions between behavior, morphology and the environment |
|
Jill L. Bubier Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science, Mt. Holyoke College |
Carbon cycling in northern wetlands |
|
John P. Buonaccorsi Professor Emeritus, Mathematics and Statistics |
Statistical theory, methods and applcations, Quantitative ecology |
|
Ana Caicedo Professor, Biology |
Evolutionary genomics of adaptation and divergence in wild, weedy and crop plant species |
|
Erin Conlon Associate Professor, Mathematics and Statistics |
Statistical methods in genomics and bioinformatics |
|
Graziella V. DiRenzo Adjunct Assistant Professor, Environmental Conservation Assistant Unit Leader, USGS Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research |
Quantitative ecology, population dynamics, applied ecology |
|
Robert L. Dorit Professor of Biological Sciences, Smith College |
Molecular evolution; comparative & statistical approaches to molecular & genome evolution |
|
Lillian Fritz–Laylin Associate Professor, Biology |
Quantitative Evolutionary Cell Biology |
|
John G. Gibbons Associate Professor, Food Science |
Genomics, Evolution, Bioinformatics |
|
Brigitte M. Holt Professor, Anthropology |
Biocultural evolution of the genus Homo, functional morphology and biomechanics of the appendicular skeleton, paleoecology, forager ecology, Old World prehistory, Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene ecology, bone mass and physical activity. |
|
Michael Hood Professor of Biology, Amherst College |
Evolutionary forces that shape systems of inheritance and disease transmission |
|
Duncan J. Irschick Professor, Biology |
Functional Morphology, Evolution, and Behavioral Ecology |
|
Elizabeth M. Jakob Professor, Biology |
Animal behavior, especially perception, learning, and social behavior |
|
Norman A. Johnson Adjunct Research Assistant Professor, Biology |
Evolutionary genetics, evolution of development |
|
Jason M. Kamilar Professor, Anthropology |
Comparative biology of primates and other mammals |
|
Laura A. Katz Professor of Biological Sciences, Smith College |
Genome evolution and biodiversity studies of microbial eukaryotes |
|
Paul S. Katz Professor, Biology |
Neuroethology, central pattern generators, single neuron RNA-seq, developmental neuroscience, evolution of neural circuits, molluscan systems
|
|
Diane A. Kelly Senior Research Fellow, Psychological and Brain Sciences |
Neurobiology, biomechanics, and evolution of reproductive systems. |
|
Lisa Komoroske Assistant Professor, Environmental Conservation |
Conservation genomics and ecophysiology in marine and freshwater ecosystems |
|
Michael L. Lavine Professor Emeritus, Mathematics and Statistics |
Statistical Theory and Methods |
|
Benjamin Letcher Adjunct Associate Professor, Environmental Conservation Section Leader, USGS Conte Anadromous Fish Research Center |
Population ecology of stream fishes |
|
Rachel A. Levin Senior Lecturer in Biology and Environmental Studies, Amherst College |
Plant systematics, biogeography and ecology |
|
Li–Jun Ma Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology |
Fungal comparative genomics, eukaryotic genome evolution and organism adaptation |
|
Jill Miller Professor of Biology, Amherst College |
Ecology and evolution of plant reproductive systems, molecular phylogenetic systematics, population and evolutionary genetics, hybridization and speciation |
|
Benjamin Normark Professor, Biology |
Evolution of alternative genetic systems; evolution of host range; scale insect systematics |
|
Jeffrey E. Podos Professor, Biology |
Mechanisms and evolution of vertebrate behavior, bioacoustics |
|
Adam H. Porter Associate Professor, Biology |
Evolutionary biology; hybridization, introgression & speciation; ecological genetics; evolution of regulatory genetic pathways; computer and mathematical modeling; invasion and range expansion; insects, especially butterflies and moths |
|
Stan P. Rachootin Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences, Mt. Holyoke College |
Evolution and development, history of evolutionary theory |
|
Stephen Rich Professor, Microbiology |
Molecular Evolution and Population Genomics of Arthropod-borne Microbial Pathogens |
|
Tristram Seidler Extension Assistant Professor, Biology |
Plant ecology, plant diversity, invasive plants, climate change |
|
David A. Sela Associate Professor, Food Science |
Nutrition, human milk, gut microbiome, systems biology, host-microbe interactions/co-evolution, translational research |
|
Lynnette Sievert Professor, Anthropology |
Evolution of menopause |
|
Allison Snow Adjunct Professor, Biology |
|
|
Michelle Staudinger Adjunct Assistant Professor, Environmental Conservation Ecologist, USGS |
Climate change impacts on coastal biodiversity and trophic relationships |
|
Ethan J. Temeles Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies, Amherst College |
Foraging behavior; Territoriality; Intra- and Interspecific competition; Resource partitioning; Mutualism; Coevolution; |
|
Elsbeth Walker Professor, Biology |
Molecular genetic approaches to studying mechanisms of metal ion homeostasis in plants |
|
Tammy L. Wilson Research Assistant Professor, Environmental Conservation Unit Leader, USGS Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research |
Landscape ecology, spatial ecology, wildlife conservation and management, structured decision-making |
