Professor,Department of Biological SciencesPlymouth State University, Boyd Hall, MSC # 64 Plymouth, NH 03264Phone: (603) 535-2864 Fax: (603) 534-2723 Email: chrisc@plymouth.edu
Interests and Goals
Biology is an incredibly fascinating discipline that allows students, researchers, and teachers to investigate questions that address issues along a huge continuum: from molecules to ecosystems. As a biologist, my specific interests lie in the area of animal behavior - especially in the 1) neural and hormonal control of behavior as well as the 2) influence of the environment. Many of my investigations address issues of circadian biology. Circadian rhythms are controlled by an internal clock and are molecular, physiological or behavioral events that occur at a frequency of about once/day. These rhythms are ubiquitous among eukaryotic organisms from single-cell organisms to worms to insects to crustaceans to vertebrates and everything in between! This ubiquity suggests that having a circadian clock helps organisms to anticipate and synchronize to daily environmental changes and is of tremendous adaptive advantage.
When teaching, my goal is to get my students to tap into that sense of wonder and questioning that we have all experienced when we turn over a log in the forest or a rock in a stream. Further, I try to help them to develop their questions and then to come up with ways with which they can attempt to answer them. In my classes, the focus is on critical thinking and the process of doing science. My research is often focused on questions that can be addressed under the auspices of a course or as independent study work. Overall, my goal is to try to immerse my students in hypothesis -driven science with the goal of presenting the results at regional (NEURON) and/or national (NEUROSCIENCE) conferences.