Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

WmD Episode #00003 has been released

Posted 20 Aug 2015 / 0

The WmD Project is picking up steam!  This week I have released the third episode of WmD’s video blog: You can see this episode in its ‘native habitat’ here. The first season of WmD is dedicated to the “big questions in ecology and evolution“. This episode, “Difference is as difference does”, is meant to cover these questions: Why do Read More

A Major Post, Adaptation, Behavior, Marine Ecosystems, Niche Partitioning, Temperate Forest, The WmD Project, Urban Ecology

WmD Episode #00002 has been released

Posted 07 Aug 2015 / 0

It took me a lot longer than I would have wished, but I have released the second episode of WmD’s video blog: You can see this episode in its ‘native habitat’ here. The first season of WmD is dedicated to the “big questions in ecology and evolution“. This episode, “Keep on keeping on… until you Read More

A Major Post, Belief, Competition, My publications, Population Growth, Predation, Religion, Senescence, Survival, The WmD Project, Urban Ecology

A niche with the masses?

Posted 22 Jun 2015 / 0

The Chronicle of Higher Education “You Want to Write for a Popular Audience? Really?” Sometimes I feel bummed out that I do not occupy a seat in a ‘normal’ academic department. But when I read about or encounter the attitudes that pervade these ‘normal’ places, I am really happy to have the freedom associated with Read More

A Minor Post, Articles, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Higher Education, The WmD Project

WmD Episode #00001 has been released!

Posted 17 Jun 2015 / 0

After a long period of planning and shooting and having to shoot again and editing and shooting some more, I finally have released the first episode of WmD’s video blog: You can see this episode in its ‘native habitat’ here. The first season of WmD is dedicated to the “big questions in ecology and evolution“. Read More

A Major Post, Evolution, The WmD Project

Sabbatical, Sweet Sabbatical

Posted 04 Jun 2015 / 0

It is early June and I am just beginning to settle in to what will be my longest period of unstructured work time since I left graduate school. In the Spring of 2014 I received tenure and in the Fall of 2014 I applied for my first sabbatical. In the coming semester — Fall 2015 Read More

A Major Post, Breeders, Propagators, & Creators, Cultural Evolution, Higher Education, Pratt Institute, Teaching, The WmD Project

The Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution

Posted 16 Feb 2015 / 2

The first season of my new video series, The WmD Project, will be focused on the foundational questions of ecology and evolution. As such I have been doing a little bit of research into these “big questions”, in particular as they were conceived of by the twin muses of this project, Alfred Russel Wallace and Read More

A Major Post, Ecology, Evolution, The WmD Project

The WmD Project has a logo

Posted 24 Jul 2014 / 0

I am finally getting chopping on The WmD Project, a new educational media series that I am going to start producing in the coming months. I like to have a logo for each of my projects; above is the logo that I constructed for this project. The images of Wallace and Darwin are from Wikimedia Commons. Read More

A Minor Post, The WmD Project

I receive funding to initiate the WmD Project

Posted 06 Mar 2014 / 2

It seemed like a proposal with a dim chance of being funded, but on a bizarre whim of inspiration I decided to apply for a small bit of money so I could initiate a new creative venture that I am calling the WmD Project. It turns out that Pratt’s Faculty Development Fund has a bit Read More

A Major Post, Ecology, Ecology Education, Evolution, Evolution Education, Pratt Institute, Science in Art & Design, The WmD Project

Sweet Fern Productions puts Alfred Russel Wallace to paper

Posted 26 Jan 2014 / 0

Sweet Fern Productions “The Animated Life of A.R. Wallace” I loved the Sweet Fern video on whale fall, but this is even more valuable as a historical account of Wallace’s life. I really like the way that this video depicts natural selection! Great way of showing differential survival as Wallace might have seen it!

A Minor Post, Biography, Evolution, Evolution Education, Film, Television, & Video, Geography, History, Natural Selection, Science as a career, Science in Art & Design, Speciation, Teaching Tools, The WmD Project, Tropical Forest

Was Teilhard de Chardin the real inventor of an evolutionary approach to culture?

Posted 26 Jan 2014 / 0

On Being “Teilhard de Chardin on The “Planetary Mind” and Our Spiritual Evolution” We often give credit to Richard Dawkins — who is undeniably the inventor of the term “memetics” — for introducing an evolutionary approach to cultural change. But as this piece makes clear, de Chardin was already thinking on far more large scales about Read More

A Minor Post, Biography, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Ecosystem Ecology, Evolution, Geology, Homo species, Human Evolution, Human Uniqueness, Memetic Fitness, Radio & Podcasts, Religion, The WmD Project