I am the Associate Chair of the Department of Biology and Molecular Biology. I am also one of the undergraduate advisors for the department. I advise those undergraduate students with last names beginning with I through O. I represent the faculty and staff who work in Science Hall on the CSAM facilities advisory board.

My research is on plants and their relationship to their environment (see Specialization). I generally teach BIOL113, BIOL213, and BIOL425/520.

My research focuses on how plants grow in the environmental conditions they live in and how plants affect the environment that they live in. Currently, my research is concentrating on three areas: the impact of Japanese knotweed (an invasive plant) on our water supply, what limits growth in the dwarf pines of the New York and New Jersey Pine Barrens, and what impact heavy metals in the soil have on birch and poplar growth. The Japanese knotweed research is in collaboration with Dr. Josh Galster and Dr. Clement Alo of the Department of Earth and Environmental Studies. The dwarf pine research has been in collaboration with Dr. Karina Schäfer at Rutgers-Newark, Dr. Maurizio Mencuccini at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (currently at Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain) and Dr. Jordi Martinez-Vilalta at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain. The heavy metal work is in collaboration with Dr. Schäfer as well. All of this work has involved and continues to involve undergraduate and graduate students. Our results from the knotweed work suggest that for some of our local streams, Japanese knotweed is removing as much as 10% of our water supply during the summer months. Given that we are already experiencing water shortages in northern New Jersey, this additional loss of water is very worrisome. We are currently trying to understand the impact of this plant at the watershed scale. The dwarf pine work suggests that pitch pine trees may be limited in their growth due to a combination of nutrient and genetic limitations. We are trying to find additional funding to further explore this area. The heavy metal work is just beginning, but the initial results show that birch trees exposed to high and low metal concentrations grow less well than trees exposed to medium levels of metals. We are exploring this further.

I mostly teach BIOL113 (Principles of Biology 2), BIOL213 (Introduction to Ecology), and BIOL425/520 (Plant physiology). In my teaching I try to engage students in their learning. My goal is to have students become fully engaged in their learning so that they go beyond rote learning and instead try to achieve deep learning (i.e. true understanding). I try to achieve this through a combination of in-class exercises, group projects out of class, hands-on learning in lab, and student reflection pieces in class. I believe that making lectures entertaining and showing students how the information is relevant to their lives helps them become and stay engaged. My exams are not multiple-choice. My exams are essay style and I ask students to demonstrate that they can apply what has been covered in class to a novel situation. As part of my dedication to achieving deep learning by the students who attend my classes, I have joined the Research Academy for University Learning (RAUL) at MSU as a fellow and mentor in the Engaged Teaching Mentors and Fellows Program.