Kenneth Mason maintains an association with the University of Iowa, Department of Biology after having served as a faculty member for eight years. His academic positions, as a teacher and researcher, include the faculty of the University of Kansas, where he designed and established the genetics lab, and taught and published on the genetics of pigmentation in amphibians. At Purdue University, he successfully developed and grew large introductory biology courses and collaborated with other faculty in an innovative biology, chemistry, and physics course supported by the National Science Foundation.
At the University of Iowa, where his wife served as president of the university, he taught introductory biology and human genetics. His honor society memberships include Phi Sigma, Alpha Lambda Delta, and, by vote of Purdue pharmacy students, Phi Eta Sigma Freshman Honors Society. Jonathan Losos is the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Biology at Washington University and Director of the Living Earth Collaborative, a partnership between the university, the Saint Louis Zoo, and the Missouri Botanical Garden.
Losos's research has focused on studying patterns of adaptive radiation and evolutionary diversification in lizards. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and the recipient of several awards, including the Theodosius Dobzhanksy and David Starr Jordan Prizes, the Edward Osborne Wilson Naturalist Award, and the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal, as well as receiving fellowships from the John Guggenheim and David and Lucile Packard Foundations.
Losos has published more than 250 scientific articles and has written two books, Lizards in an Evolutionary Tree : Ecology and Adaptive Radiation of Anotes (University of California Press, 2009) and Improbable Destinies : Fate, Chance, and the Future of Evolution (Penguin-Random House, 2017). He is currently in the process of writing his next book, on scientific research on the ecology and evolution of domestic cats.
Tod Duncan is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Denver. He currently teaches the first semester of introductory biology, which focuses on molecular and cellular systems ; he also teaches upper-division courses in virology and cancer biology. Tod also runs the first-semester introductory biology labs in the course-based undergraduate research (CURE) format, in which up to 800 students each semester perform metagenomic analysis of purebred Labrador retriever gastrointestinal microbiota.
Previously, he taught general microbiology, virology, the biology of cancer, medical microbiology, and cell biology. A bachelor's degree in cell biology with an emphasis on plant molecular and cellular biology from the University of East Anglia in England led to doctoral studies in cell cycle control, and postdoctoral research on the molecular and biochemical mechanisms of DNA alkylation damage in vitro and in Drosophila melanogaster.
Currently, he is interested in factors affecting retention and success of incoming first-year students in diverse demographics.
