Biology

Faculty

Temple Burling
Associate Professor of Physics, Biology and Great Ideas; Director, Heritage Studies Program
David A. Straz Jr. Center B6-F
· (262) 551-5963

Temple Burling is a biophysicist interested in computational problems in macromolecular crystallography, the structure of proteins, the physics of biological systems, and the history of science.

He came to Carthage in 2002 from the Department of Biochemistry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where he served as an assistant professor and as the director of the X-ray Crystallography Core Facility. Before his work at Cornell, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University, where he examined problems in computational crystallography, protein dynamics, and high-resolution macromolecular structure determination by multi-wavelength anomalous dispersion. His teaching and research interests focus on the overlap of physics and biology.

Deanna G. Byrnes
Associate Professor of Biology

Deanna began studying evolutionary biology while earning her B.S. at Cornell University. After working at Abbott Laboratories for six years, she returned to her interests in mammal evolution and tropical ecology to earn her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 2005. She is a rural Wisconsin native, and joined the Carthage faculty in fall 2007, after teaching and researching as a Lawrence University Postdoctoral Fellow in Appleton, Wis.

Thomas Carr
Associate Professor of Biology
Building/Room: Straz B10A
·(262)-551-5887

Thomas is a vertebrate paleontologist whose research integrates data of growth and speciation patterns to infer the intrinsic evolutionary processes that explain how unique features in extinct dinosaurs - especially tyrannosaurs - evolved. Thomas earned his Ph.D. in vertebrate paleontology in the Department of Zoology at the University of Toronto, Canada. He joined the Carthage faculty in 2004.

Dan Choffnes
Associate Professor of Biology
Building/Room: Straz B-6G
·(262)-551-2374

Dan Choffnes, a developmental geneticist, joined the Carthage faculty in 2006. As an undergraduate, he studied biotechnology through coursework and laboratory research at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. He continued his training as a National Science Foundation graduate fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, where his Ph.D. research focused on bioinformatics, gene evolution, and developmental genetics. Dr. Choffnes’ Ph.D. dissertation focused on the genetics of stem cell regulation in plants. He maintains research projects in the field of developmental biology and encourages students to pursue independent experimental work.

Dana Garrigan
Associate Professor of Biology
Building/Room: Straz B10

Dana’s research interests have taken him from the desert southwest of the United States to the rainforest of South America, the New Zealand highlands, and the Galapagos Islands. Recently, he has been studying butterfly distributions in Mount Rainier National Park to assess the potential impacts of climate change on alpine species. Dana was an undergraduate at St. Olaf College and earned his Ph.D. in Biology at the University of Utah. His research interests focus on insects, plants, and their interactions. He joined the Carthage faculty in 2007.

Tracy Gartner
Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Biology
Building/Room: Straz B10B
·(262)-551-5803

Starting out as a biology and environmental science major at Coe College, a small liberal arts school much like Carthage, she went on to receive her PhD in ecology from the University of Connecticut. After finishing her degree, she spent two years doing postdoctoral research in Alaska, focusing on the role of the fungal community for decomposition. She joined the Carthage faculty in 2005 as an ecologist and environmental scientist.

Scott Hegrenes
Assistant Professor of Biology
Building/Room: Straz 232A
·(262)-551-6616

Scott is an ecologist whose interests include evolution, behavior, and conservation. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology from Illinois State University before coming to Carthage in 2001. Scott makes use of the Phil Sander Audubon Sanctuary, the Alice Moody Chapin Arboretum, and the Pike River running through campus as outdoor laboratories for his classes.

Roger Lindberg
Professor of Biology
Building/Room: Straz B10D
·(262)-551-5970

Roger earned his Ph.D. in 1974 from the University of Kansas. He spent two years doing postdoctoral research at the University of Kansas Medical Center followed by six years of teaching graduate and undergraduate courses and doing research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He joined the Carthage faculty in 2000 after 18 years at Abbott Laboratories where he worked on the research and development of diagnostic tests for allergy and infectious diseases.

Paul Martino
Assistant Professor of Biology
David Straz Center 216
·(262) 551-2416

Paul Martino earned a B.A. in natural sciences and mathematics from Dowling College, and an M.S. in exercise physiology from Ball State University. He received a Ph.D. in physiology from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2006, then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Wright State University. He comes to Carthage from Milwaukee Area Technical College, where he taught anatomy and physiology at two campuses.

Patrick Pfaffle
Department Chair and Associate Professor of Biology
Building/Room: Straz 219
·(262)-551-5516

Pat earned his Ph.D. in 1990 from the Medical College of Wisconsin, Department of Biochemistry, where he received the Outstanding Dissertation Award. He taught graduate and undergraduate biology courses at Indiana State University from 1993 until he joined the Carthage faculty in 1997. He has received numerous grants and awards for scientific research, including the National Institutes of Health Academic Research Enhancement Award.

Elaine Radwanski
Associate Professor of Biology
Building/Room: Straz 224
·(262) 551-5865

Elaine earned her Ph.D. in Genetics and Development at Cornell University in 1995. After receiving her doctorate, Radwanski joined the Department of Plant Breeding and Biometry at Cornell as a Postdoctoral Associate, where her research focused on disease resistance in peppers. She joined the Carthage faculty in 1997.

Deborah Tobiason
Assistant Professor of Biology
Building/Room: Straz B10

Deb is a microbiologist whose research has involved DNA recombination and replication in human pathogens, as well as host-pathogen interactions. She earned her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Emory University in 1998 and went on to join the Department of Microbiology-Immunology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University where she moved up the ranks to Research Assistant Professor. She joined the Carthage faculty in 2007.

Faculty Spotlight

Biology professor Thomas Carr, vertebrate paleontologist, featured in National Geographic Channel special. Read more.


Research Opportunities

SURE

Summer Undergraduate Research Experience lets students work one-on-one with a faculty mentor.