Success in life, for humans and all animals, requires multitasking. Multitasking — the simultaneous execution of two or more behaviors by a single agent — may at times seem effortless and safe, such as walking and talking, or challenging and potentially fatal, such as driving and texting. Performance differences between different multitasking contexts are likely reflected in the cognitive demands of the constituent behaviors, yet the neural substrates that facilitate or constrain multitasking remain unknown.

By sharing my experiences and perspectives as a teaching professor, I hope to contribute to the ongoing demystification of the diverse pathways taken by teaching professors as they contribute to our shared missions of teaching, service, and scholarship. During this interactive presentation, we will have opportunities to reflect on and discuss strategies for building community, engaging learners, and improving equity, both in the classroom and beyond the classroom.

Epithelial organs adopt precise structures during development that must be rapidly repaired in
response to injury. My lab uses zebrafish skin as a model system to understand the molecular
and cellular basis of epithelial organ development and repair. Skin contains a heterogeneous
mixture of cell types—including stem cells, sensory cells, and immune cells—that together
bestow the organ with its remarkable durability and touch sensitivity. In this talk, I will highlight

Individuality is a fundamental feature of animal behavior and represents a potent substrate that evolutionary pressures can act upon. Such idiosyncrasy in behavior exists across scales: within a single animal from moment-to-moment, across animals responding to an identical stimulus, or in response to complex and changing environments. Individuality within insect behavior is also important to understand within the context of global health.

Using an algorithm incorporating high school GPA and SAT scores, we can predict a student’s GPA in biology at the end of SPU’s introductory undergraduate sequence. A disproportionate number of underrepresented students, however, are predicted to have lower grades. This finding instigated the development of the BioCORE Scholars Program in 2015. Its interventions include study cohorts, peer mentors, community role models, and research participation.