Department of Biology
Victoria L. Bautch
Department of Biology
Beverly Long Chapin Distinguished Professor
Christina Burch
Department of Biology
Professor
Dr. Burch’s research centers around experimental evolution using bacteria and their viruses.
Sabrina Burmeister
Department of Biology
Associate Professor
Jennifer Coble
Department of Biology
Teaching Associate Professor
Jean S. DeSaix
Department of Biology
Teaching Professor
https://bio.unc.edu/faculty-profile/desaix/
Dr. DeSaix is interested in the scholarship of teaching and learning. She is semi-retired but still advises students through a number of organizations including the Carolina Covenant and the Undergraduate Rural Medicine Scholars program.
Jill Dowen
Department of Biology
Assistant Professor
Mara Evans
Department of Biology
Teaching Assistant Professor
Alaina Garland
Department of Biology
Teaching Assistant Professor
Patricia Gensel
Department of Biology
Professor
Dr. Gensel is a paleontologist, studying fossil plants or their propagules (pollen, spores); she is especially interested in early land plant evolution, acquisition of certain plant characters (such as roots, leaves, seeds), and relationships both between fossil plant types and between the plants around us today. She is also interested in paleoecology, where possible to interpret, namely reconstructing what a 400 million year old landscape would look like.
She has been studying fossils for decades and still finds it fascinating. Along with paleontology, Dr. Gensel likes to hike outdoors, canoe or kayak, read or enjoy music. She is widowed and has one daughter.
Amy Gladfelter
Department of Biology
Associate Professor of Biology, Associate Chair
https://gladfelterlab.web.unc.edu
Dr. Gladfelter is a cell biologist who loves to work across disciplines to collaborate with physicists, engineers, and mathematicians. She is fascinated by how cells are organized in time and space, and she combines microscopy, biophysics, and modeling to understand how biological molecules self-organize for cell growth and division.
Kacy Gordon
Department of Biology
Assistant Professor
Dr. Gordon studies the germ line stem cell niche in nematode worms.
Sarah Grant
Department of Biology
Research Professor
https://bio.unc.edu/faculty-profile/grant/
Dr. Grant uses comparative genomics and genetics to discover how diverse bacteria interact with plants. She studies virulence factors that enable bacteria to overcome the plant immune system and act as pathogens. She also studies how plant immune systems are modulated by environmental microbes to allow formation of stable plant-microbe communities.
Kelly A. Hogan
Department of Biology
Teaching Professor
Catherine Lohmann
Department of Biology
Teaching Assistant Professor
Amy Shaub Maddox
Department of Biology
Associate Professor
Ann G. Matthysse
Department of Biology
Professor
Former WOWS Scholar
Dr. Matthysse began her scientific career at a time when she was the first or one of the first women in a group of two or three in each position she held. When she applied to graduate school, the first question every interviewer asked was why they should admit her when they could admit an equally well-qualified man instead.
She currently has a research focus on the genetics, molecular, and cell biology of the interactions of bacteria with plant surfaces.
Laura Miller
Department of Biology
Professor
Dr. Miller is a Professor of Biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She received her Ph.D. from the Courant Institute of Mathematics at New York University in 2004, and her work focused on “The aerodynamics of tiny insect flight.” She joined the faculty in the UNC Department of Mathematics in January 2007 and later the Department of Biology in January of 2013.
Using her training in both mathematics and biology, she continues to apply mathematical modeling and computational fluid dynamics to better understand how organisms interact with their environments. Her current research interests include the feeding and swimming mechanics of jellyfish, the coupled electromechanical problem of tubular heart pumping, and the aerodynamics of flight in the smallest insects and spiders.
Punita Nagpal
Department of Biology
Research Assistant Professor
Laura Ott
Department of Biology
Teaching Assistant Professor
Karin Pfennig
Department of Biology & Environment, Ecology and Energy Program
Professor
https://karin-pfennig-lab.org/
Dr. Pfennig’s research examines the role of behavior in the origins of life’s diversity and why that diversity is distributed the way that it is.
Maria R. Servedio
Department of Biology
Professor
Former WOWS Scholar
Celia Shiau
Department of Biology
Assistant Professor
Barbara Stegenga
Department of Biology
Teaching Lab Supervisor
Blaire Steinwand
Department of Biology
Teaching Assistant Professor
Caroline Tucker
Department of Biology & Environment, Ecology and Energy Program
Assistant Professor
Dr. Tucker studies the causes and consequences of biodiversity, using everything from experiments with freshwater ecosystems to quantitative analyses of different kinds of biodiversity are distributed globally.
Elaine Yeh
Department of Biology
Research Associate Professor
Lillian Zwemer
Department of Biology
Teaching Assistant Professor
Dr. Zwemer was trained as a laboratory scientist in molecular genetics and genomics, but what she loved most was talking about genetics and the ways that it can help add depth to our understanding of life’s biggest questions (How are we a product of our evolution, and in what ways were we shaped by the history of earth? Who are we as individuals and how should we engage with one another in community? What is the future of our species?). She loved teaching so much that she gave up her research, but she continues to love exploring the ways that technological innovations unlock new avenues of exploration, and eventually profound knowledge.
