Department of Biological Sciences
 

Integrative Behavioral and Organismal Biology (IBOB)

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IBOB is an interdisciplinary group of faculty in the Departments of Biological Sciences, Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Statistics and Economics with shared interests in behavioral and organismal biology, including the ecological, evolutionary, endocrinological, neural, and genetic bases of behavior, and related issue concerning environmental toxicology, and the conservation biology and management of natural animal populations. The mission of the group is: (1) to foster interaction and communication among behavioral/organismal biologists across campus, (2) to stimulate interdisciplinary research, and (3) to promote multi- disciplinary training of graduate students in behavioral biology. IBOB has been targeted for multiple new hires over the next 5-6 years in three related areas.

  • Ecology of Stress
  • Biological Diversity/Sustainability
  • Endocrinological, Neural and Genetic Control of Behavior

NEW FACULTY MEMBERS JOIN IBOB

Bill Hopkins joined IBOB and the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Science in August 2005. Bill is a comparative physiologist whose recent work has focused on digestive physiology and ecotoxicology of reptiles and amphibians. He received his MS. in Zoology at Auburn University in 1997 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology in 2001. Bill is an active member of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology and the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. He serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for the International Center for Birds of Prey.

Dana Hawley will join IBOB and the Biological Sciences faculty in January 2007, after completing postdoctoral research at the National Zoo in Washington, DC. Dr. Hawley recently obtained her Ph.D. from Cornell University where she worked with Andre Dhondt. Her research focuses on the interface between organismal and population-level traits, and the consequences of these interactions for animal disease ecology. She uses a wide variety of techniques, ranging from manipulative behavioral experiments to molecular techniques. In her dissertation research, she studied an avian host-pathogen system to explore disease ecology as a function of 1) social competition, individual behavior, and stress, and 2) population and individual-level genetic variability.