Program Faculty

Please click on a faculty member's name to view information about research interests, publications, courses and to view a curriculum vitae.

Area of specialization: microbial physiology and metabolism, molecular genetics
Research interests: natural products, metabolic engineering, peptide therapeutics

Area of specialization: environmental toxicology
Research interests: aquatic toxicology, wildlife toxicology, toxicology of metals

Dr. Sarah E. Bergemann - Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

Area of specialization: evolutionary ecology of fungi
Research interests: phylogeography, population genetics of plant pathogens and mycorrhizal fungi

Dr. Lynn Boyd - Professor and Chair, Department of Biology

Area of specialization: developmental and cellular biology
Research interests: role of ubiquitin in early embryogenesis

Area of specialization: molecular systematics
Research interests: biogeography and evolution of butterflies

Area of specialization: plant cell biology and molecular genetics
Research interests: chloroplast development and gene expression

Area of specialization: colloid and surface science, electron spectroscopy
Research interests: functionalization of carbon nanomaterials, materials remediation in aqueous environments

Area of specialization: environmental chemistry, urban geochemistry.
Research interests: occurrence, reactions, and fate of contaminants in soil water environments.

Dr. Norma Dunlap - Professor, Department of Chemistry

Area of specialization: synthetic organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry
Research interests: design and synthesis of bioactive compounds, isolation, identification and synthesis of bioactive natural products

Dr. Daniel Erenso- Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy

Area of specialization: biophysics, optoelectronics, quantum optics and quantum information.
Research interests: hemoglobin disorders, photonic crystals, quantum teleportation, molecular dynamics.

Area of specialization: microbial pathogenesis
Research interests: host-parasite interactions

Area of specialization: microbiology
Research interests: intracellular microorganisms, pathogenesis

Dr. Robert Fischer- Dean, College of Basic and Applied Sciences

Area of Specialization: evolutionary biology, population ecology, stress biology
Research interests: life-history theory, parental investment theory, energy allocation theory and invasive species ecology

Area of specialization: organic chemistry
Research interests: organic synthesis, synthesis of bioactive compounds, cross-coupling chemistry

Area of specialization: evolution, ecology, population genetics
Research interests: mating system evolution, maintenance of polymorphism

Area of specialization: enzyme mechanisms and kinetics, protein structure-function
Research interests: synthesis of biologically active molecules

Area of specialization: biochemistry, microbiology
Research interests: lipid biochemistry of algae

Area of specialization: theoretical chemistry
Research interests: molecular visualization, drug design, molecular electronics, molecular modeling

Area of specialization: phylogeography, population genetics, and molecular systematics
Research interests: biogeography of species with geographic disjunctions, conservation genetics

Area of specialization: eparasitology, bacteriology
Research interests: pathogenic protozoa and amoeba as a hosts for bacterial replication, naturally occurring and human-made antimicrobial compounds

Area of specialization: environmental toxicology
Research interests: nanotoxicology, coal ash toxicology

Area of specialization: mathematics for biological systems
Research interests: mathematical modeling for biological systems, applied differential equations and analysis

Dr. J. Brian Robertson - Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

Area of specialization: chronobiology, molecular genetics
Research interests: bioluminescence, microbial timekeeping, and biotechnology

Dr. Mohamed (Moh) Salem- Assistant Professor, Department of Biology

Area of specialization: animal genomics
Research interests: fish/aquaculture functional genomics and transcriptomics, genomic selection, molecular genetics, genetic markers, muscle development/degeneration

Area of specialization: gene regulation, biochemistry
Research interests: gene expression (especially mRNA splicing) and function (especially enzyme biochemistry)

Area of specialization: ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations
Research interests: mathematical modeling in cancer biology, and protein folding

Area of specialization: plant ecology
Research interests: seed ecology, cedar glade ecology

Area of specialization: bioanalytical and Biophysical Chemistry
Research interests: drug development for Parkinson's disease, FTIR application in biophysical chemistry, and sensor development for pollutants