Fall 2007 | RETURN TO NEWSLETTER HOME
Looking Back and Looking Forward: A Note from the Chair
The past year for the Department of Biology was incredibly inspiring and set new levels of excellence: about 480 bachelor degrees were awarded along with 19 doctoral degrees; we successfully attracted over 12 million dollars in federal and private grants supporting research and educational missions spanning all levels of biological organization; and we received accolades ranging from a ranking as the top U.S. graduate program in zoology to national and university awards for teaching and research accomplishments. The year to come heralds even more excitement as we welcome two new colleagues to the faculty: Caroline Strömberg and Greg Wilson, both of whom use paleobiology and historic climate analyses to understand the correlation between the environment and evolution throughout the history of life on the planet. This year we hope to recruit at least two new faculty members through an unprecedented search process that seeks the best in a wide array of possible research domains. All of this is made possible by the special chemistry that comes from mixing the best staff, faculty, graduates students, and undergraduates in a department whose focus is nothing less than understanding the basic principles of life on Earth.
Prof. Tom Daniel
Department Chair
Komen Endowed Chair in Biology