Posted 24 May 2017 / 0
Book reviews are certainly not the most important or monumental works that I might hope to publish, but I still think that they are valuable. I am excited that my most recent book review has been published in the Quarterly Review of Biology. I reviewed an edited volume out on Cambridge University Press entitled Trophic Read More
A Major Post, Books, Community Ecology, Ecology, My publications
Posted 08 May 2017 / 2
One of the activities that I regularly have my students complete in my Evolution course is called “Future Evolution“. The activity sends students on what most evolutionary biologists consider a fool’s errand: to try to predict the future evolution of some particular trait in some particular species. Making such predictions is really difficult for these basic reasons: Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Animal Domestication, Anthropogenic Change, Coevolution, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Evolution Education, Human Evolution, Lesson Ideas, MSCI-260, Evolution, Prediction, Uncategorized
Posted 12 Apr 2017 / 0
Why do people make art? Given that human art-making emerged tens of thousands of years ago and is such an integral part of most human societies, why we make art is an important question. Philosophers have been trying to answer this question for a long time. More recently, scientists have begun to explore explanations for human Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Archaeology, Art & Design, Communication, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Department of Mathematics & Science, Emotion, Empathy, Evolutionary Psychology, Gene-Culture Coevolution, Group Selection, Human Evolution, Human Nature, Human Uniqueness, Memetic Fitness, Multilevel Selection, Play, Pratt Institute, Psychological Adaptation, Social Networks
Posted 01 Apr 2017 / 0
Like a lot of important policy these days, it all started with an early morning tweet from President Donald Trump: What did the tweet mean? Could it be possible that the Trump administration had a plan to deal with climate change? And what does climate change have to do with microbes and antibiotics? Environmentalists, political Read More
A Major Post, Anthropogenic Change, Climate Change, Decomposition, Ecology, Ethics, Public Policy, Sustainability, System Stability
Posted 15 Mar 2017 / 0
I am proud to be collaborating with Photography Labs Manager and Assistant Professor Andy Todd to bring Dr. Roland Kays of North Carolina State University to Pratt Institute. Dr. Kays will make two appearances on the Brooklyn campus during the annual Green Week celebration: On Thursday, March 30th at 6 pm in ARC E-2, Dr. Kays will Read More
A Major Post, Behavior, Behavioral Ecology, Biodiversity Loss, Birds, Canids, Citizen Science, Community Ecology, Conservation Biology, Department of Mathematics & Science, Experiments (General), Felids, Hypothesis Testing, Photography, Population Pressure, Primates, Public Outreach, Sustainability
Posted 27 Jan 2017 / 0
Different rates of positive and negative growth create different population trajectories over time In biology, a population is a group of organisms that belong to the same species and occupy a defined land area (or volume of air or water). These populations have the tendency to grow and shrink over time. This is because the rate at which members of Read More
A Major Post, Eco 101, Ecology, Intrinsic Growth Rate, Population Growth
Posted 13 Jan 2017 / 0
I am not afraid to play around when it comes to my teaching. I have been teaching for what seems to me a long time — eight years as a middle school teacher, several instructor gigs in graduate school, and now nearly ten years as a professor at Pratt — and I never feel as Read More
A Major Post, Course Evaluations, Higher Education, MSCI-260, Evolution, MSCI-270, Ecology, MSCI-271, Ecology for Architects, Teaching
Posted 10 Dec 2016 / 0
One of the activities that I regularly have my students complete in my Evolution course is called “Future Evolution“. The activity sends students on what most evolutionary biologists consider a fool’s errand: to try to predict the future evolution of some particular trait in some particular species. Making such predictions is really difficult for these basic reasons: Read More
A Major Post, Adaptation, Animal Domestication, Anthropogenic Change, Coevolution, Cultural Evolution, Evolution, Evolution Education, Human Evolution, Lesson Ideas, MSCI-260, Evolution, Prediction, Resistance Evolution in Parasites
Posted 08 Dec 2016 / 0
The Juliana Curran Design Center, where Interior Design, Industrial Design, and Communications Design critiques take place For the past three academic years, Pratt has instituted a new feature of its academic calendar: Studio Days, four days sandwiched between the penultimate instructional week and finals week, are dedicated solely to critiques, surveys, and final reviews in the studio majors. The Read More
A Major Post, Critiques, Reviews, & Surveys, Higher Education, Sustainability, Teaching
Posted 18 Nov 2016 / 0
Last year, Pratt Professor Ágnes Mócsy started a new speaker series at Pratt called Art.Sci Affair. The series is designed to foster conversations about what Mócsy referred to as “scientists who dip into art” and “artists who dip into science”. This semester’s speaker was Julia Buntaine, an artist with a background and continuing interest in neuroscience. Buntaine Read More
A Major Post, Art & Design, Collaborative Art, Department of Mathematics & Science, Green Design, Industrial Design, Installation Art, Neuroscience, Public Art, Public Outreach, Resilience, Science (General), Science in Art & Design, Sculpture, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Urban Design, Talks & Seminars
