The Fulbright Program
I am currently visiting Malaysia as a Fulbright Visiting Scholar. The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. government, is designed to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” I will be taking a Development Leave from my position as an Associate Professor in the Honors College and Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX (http://www.ttu.edu/) while I am away.
While I am in Malaysia I will be hosted by the Program in Ecology and Biodiversity in the Institute of Biological Sciences at UM. I arrived in Malaysia on June 6th, 2010 and I will remain here until April, 2011. If you want to learn more about my adventures in Malaysia you can check out my blog http://markinmalaysia.blogspot.com/.
So you can learn a little bit more about me- here is my life story.
The Formative Years
I was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and after a couple of moves we ended up in Rosenberg, Texas (near Houston) where I attended grade school. I was interested in biology from an early age; I watched Marlin Perkins (he had a nature show called "Wild Kingdom") and Jacque Cousteau (a famous French marine biologist- do you know of him?) and I spent a lot of time outdoors on family camping and fishing trips. Even though I grew up near Houston, the home of the US space program, during the Apollo years, I always thought that it would be much cooler to be a biologist than an astronaut.
When I was in the sixth grade my family moved to Australia for four years. We spent two years living in Melbourne and two years living in Sydney. This was an amazing life change for a kid who thought that the annual trip to my grandparents’ house in Oklahoma was a big deal. I had the incomparable experience of living in another country and experiencing a whole new way of life. Probably the biggest difference between Australia and the U.S. was the schools. I went to an all-boys English-style, private school where we had to wear uniforms (suits and ties) and straw boater hats to class everyday. I still do not like wearing neck ties to this day.
The move also provided me with the opportunity to travel the world. During trips through Europe and Asia we saw many places of historical and cultural interest. Among my favorites were the Coliseum in Rome, the Tower of London, and Mt. Fuji in Japan. More importantly, my travels exposed me to many new biological experiences including seeing hippos, gazelles, elephants, and a cheetah in South Africa, snorkeling and beachcombing in Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji, and the Great Barrier Reef, chasing emus through the Australian outback, watching a male lyrebird do his mating dance, watching fairy penguins come ashore for the night off of the coast of southern Australia, and many sightings of other Australian wildlife including kangaroos and koalas (how many people do you know that have ever seen a koala running along the ground?).
During the summer before my sophomore year in high school (grade 10) we moved to Thousand Oaks, California which is located very near to Los Angeles. I graduated from Thousand Oaks High School where I must admit I was a big science nerd. During my senior year I spent a week studying ecology and philosophy in Yosemite National Park and this trip confirmed by desire to be a biologist.
Education
I enrolled at the University of California, Santa Barbara to study biology. UCSB is an incredible place to go to school (I could see the ocean from my bedroom window three out of the four years that I was there) and it also happened to have one of the best ecology programs in the world at that time. Joe Connell (one of the most influential ecologist of our era) taught the ecology section of my intro biology course and also taught my first ecology course, so it is probably his fault that I am here today because after finishing his course I knew that I wanted to be an ecologist. Later, after taking courses from Steve Rothstein and Bob Warner, I became interested in behavioral and evolutionary ecology and I decided to go to grad school to study behavioral ecology. I went to Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas which was a pretty big change from UCSB. I enjoyed K-State and I was lucky to be able to spend summers working for my advisor Chris Smith at the Mountain Research Station in Colorado studying pollination in lodgepole pine. My Masters Thesis extended optimal foraging models to examine woodrats foraging for non-food items (sticks that they use to build their houses). I also did a theoretical study examining how food stress should affect sex ratios. I earned a Ph. D. at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. For my Ph. D. thesis with Jon Seger, I developed models and conducted experiments to understand the causes of seed size variation in plants. During my little free time, I played volleyball with the U of U Volleyball Club team. I spent two years working as a post-doctoral researcher with Dave Tilman at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Our research focused on succession in old fields at Cedar Creek Natural History Area just north of Minneapolis.
Life at Texas Tech
I started as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas in 1991. I am currently an Associate Professor with a joint position in the Honors College and the Department of Biological Sciences. In the Honors College I work closely with the Natural History and Humanities degree (http://www.depts.ttu.edu/honors/nhh/)
Teaching
I teach a wide variety of classes at Tech. Two of my favorite courses are Tropical Marine Biology (taught in Jamaica and Belize) and the Rio Grande Class (we take a week-long canoe trip through Big Bend over Spring Break). For the past 6 summers I have worked as a scuba instructor and marine biologist with Odyssey Expeditions (http://www.odysseyexpeditions.com/) leading sailing and scuba trips through the Caribbean (British Virgin Islands, Martinique, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent & the Grenadines).
Scholarship
For several years I conducted ecological research in the sand shinnery oak community in West Texas. My current interests are in science curriculum development, environmental education, and informatl science education. I serve as a member of the Stewardship Committee of the Environmental Information Coalition and as an Associate Editor for the Encyclopedia of the Earth (http://www.eoearth.org/). In the Malaysian Bat Education Adventure (http://www.ttu-mbea.org/) we are using the ecology of Malaysian Bats as the focus of an integrated science curriculum for students in Kindergarten through 8th grade for students in the United States.
Traveling
I enjoy traveling and I have been able to explore my passion for scuba diving on dive trips in Texas (San Solomon Springs in Balmorhea and the Flower Garden Banks) throughout the Caribbean as well as Yap, Palau, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Galapagos Islands. My favorite marine critters include hammerhead sharks, pygmy sea horses, and “the pea”. I look forward to exploring as much of Peninsular and East Malaysia as I can while I am here. Where do you suggest that I go?
Other Hobbies
Besides travelling, sports and music are my main hobbies. I enjoy playing the guitar and listening to music. Folk-rock music from the 60s and 70s is my favorite style, but I also like rock and blues.
My favorite sport to play is volleyball, but I have not played seriously for over two years. My favorite sport as a spectator is American Football. My favorite professional team is the Dallas Cowboys. Of course, my most favorite team are the Texas Tech University Red Raiders. The Red Raiders play their first game on September 5th which is less than two months away! Go Tech!!
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