The culminating experience for the book studies concentration is an independent research project that synthesizes the student’s academic and practical experiences. The student’s concentration adviser may or may not serve as the sponsor for the project; topics for this capstone project is decided in concert with the student’s adviser and vetted by the concentration’s director. The seminar meets once each week to discuss methodology and progress on the independent projects and to discuss general readings in book studies theory and praxis.

Coral reefs occupy a small portion of Earth’s surface, but their importance to the marine ecosystem is great. This seminar considers the geologic importance and ecological interactions of coral reefs. We focus on the status of coral reefs worldwide, considering effects of environmental and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g., major storms, eutrophication, acidification, overfishing). Methods for reef conservation are examined. Enrollment limited to 12. Juniors and seniors only. Instructor permission required.

Quantitative Ecology Lab is an advanced, applied course on ecological population modeling and data analysis. Students will implement mathematical models describing population dynamics and species interactions, as well as modern analytical approaches commonly applied to ecological data using the R computing language. Throughout this course students will acquire skills in data analysis, data visualization, data management, code, reproducibility, and modeling. Corequisite: BIO 372. Enrollment limited to 20.

Quantitative Ecology is an advanced course covering ecological modeling and data analysis. In this course, students will explore the principles of mathematical modeling to describe population dynamics and species interactions. In addition, students will learn modern analytical approaches in the study of ecological communities and ecological experiments. This course should be taken in combination with Quantitative Ecology Lab (3??).

This research-based lab allows students to explore the eukaryotic microbiomes associated with various environments on campus, including the greenshouse and marine aquaria. Students in the course will master the basics of light microscopy, PCR, and analyses of high-throughput sequencing data. Students will also use the scanning electron microscope to survey their communities. The work in the course culminates in a poster presentation on the discoveries of the sememster. A one-hour weekly lab meeting is scheduled in addition to the three-hour lab period. Corequisite: BIO 370.

This course focuses on the origin and diversification of microorganisms, with emphasis on eukaryotic lineages. The first weeks of lecture cover the origin of life on Earth, and the diversification of bacteria and archaea. From there, we focus on the diversification of eukaryotes, examining the many innovations that mark some of the major clades of eukaryotes. Evaluation is based on a combination of class participation, short writings and an independent research paper. Prerequisite: BIO 230 or 232 or permission of the instructor. Laboratory (BIO 371) is strongly recommended but not required.

Unlike Mendel’s round or wrinkled peas, many biological traits exhibit more than two distinct forms. Quantitative genetics allows the study of continuously varying traits through statistical models that incorporate interactions between multiple genetic loci and the environment. Ongoing improvements in high-throughput DNA sequencing are revealing genetic mechanisms underlying human traits, such as predisposition to disease.

We are living through an extraordinary event: the COVID-19 pandemic. But public health is never about biology alone. We cannot make sense of this global emergency unless we incorporate insights and methods from the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. We have no context for this disease without history and narrative. We cannot decode the human costs of the pandemic without economics, politics and sociology.

A laboratory course designed to complement the lecture material in 332. Advanced techniques used to study the molecular biology of eukaryotes are learned in the context of a semester-long project. These methods include techniques for studying genomics and gene expression including: CRISPR, RNA interference, DNA sequence analysis, RT-PCR, genomics, bioinformatics and others. Prerequisite: BIO 231. Corequisite: BIO 332. Enrollment limited to 16.

Advanced molecular biology of eukaryotes and their viruses (including coronavirus, Ebola and HIV). Topics include genomics, bioinformatics, eukaryotic gene organization, regulation of gene expression, RNA processing, retroviruses, transposable elements, gene rearrangement, methods for studying human genes and genetic diseases, CRISPR, molecular biology of infectious diseases, genome projects and whole genome analysis. Reading assignments are from the primary literature. Each student presents an in-class presentation and writes a paper on a topic selected in consultation with the instructor.