Biology: How Life Works

James Morris is Professor of Biology at Brandeis University. He teaches a wide variety of courses for majors and non-majors, including introductory biology, evolution, genetics and genomics, epigenetics, comparative vertebrate anatomy, and a first-year seminar on Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards from Brandeis and Harvard. His research focuses on epigenetics. He currently pursues this research with undergraduates to give them the opportunity to do genuine, laboratory-based research. Dr. Morris received a PhD in genetics from Harvard University and an MD from Harvard Medical School. He was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University and a National Academies Education Fellow and Mentor in the Life Sciences. He is also a reader for the AP® Biology exam and an author of Biology for the AP® Course.

Daniel L. Hartl is Higgins Professor of Biology in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. He has taught highly popular courses in genetics and evolution at both the introductory and advanced levels. His lab studies molecular evolutionary genetics and population genetics and genomics. Dr. Hartl has been awarded the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal from the Genetics Society of America, the Samuel Weiner Outstanding Scholar Award, and the Gold Medal of the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn in Naples, Italy. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served as President of the Genetics Society of America and President of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. Dr. Hartl’s PhD is from the University of Wisconsin, and he did postdoctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the Harvard faculty, he served on the faculties of the University of Minnesota, Purdue University, and Washington University Medical School. In addition to publishing more than 450 scientific articles, Dr. Hartl has authored or coauthored 35 books.

Andrew H. Knoll is Fisher Research Professor of Natural History in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is also Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences and taught introductory courses for many years in both departments. Dr. Knoll’s research focuses on the early evolution of life, Earth dynamic environmental history, and the interconnections between the two. He has also worked extensively on the early evolution of animals, mass extinction, and plant evolution, and he served on the science team for NASA’s MER mission to Mars. Dr. Knoll received the Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science for Life on a Young Planet. In 2018, he was awarded the International Prize for Biology and in 2022, he received the prestigious Crafoord Prize in Geosciences for his research on Earth’s early history. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Royal Society of London. Dr. Knoll received his PhD from Harvard University and taught at Oberlin College before returning to Harvard.

Robert Lue was Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University and the Richard L. Menschel Faculty Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. Dr. Lue had a longstanding commitment to interdisciplinary teaching and research and chaired the faculty committee that developed the first integrated science foundation in the country to serve science majors as well as pre-medical students. The founding director of Life Sciences Education at Harvard, Dr. Lue led a complete redesign of the introductory curriculum, redefining how the university can more effectively foster new generations of scientists as well as science-literate citizens. Dr. Lue also developed award-winning multimedia, including the animation The Inner Life of the Cell. He coauthored undergraduate biology textbooks and chaired education conferences on college biology for the National Academies and the National Science Foundation and on diversity in science for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the National Institutes of Health. In 2012, Dr. Lue’s extensive work on using technology to enhance learning took a new direction when he became faculty director of university-wide online education initiative HarvardX. Dr. Lue earned his PhD from Harvard University.

Melissa Michael is Associate Director for Curriculum and Instruction in the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Associate Director Michael primarily focuses on the continuing development of the School’s undergraduate curricula. Her research focuses on the ways in which formative assessment strategies affect student learning outcomes in large-enrollment courses. She leads a new initiative to bring inclusive teaching practices to STEM courses. A member of the leadership for Mobile Summer Institutes for Scientific Teaching, she is now serving as an officer on the inaugural Executive Committee for the National Institute on Scientific Teaching.

Brian D. Farrell is the Monique and Philip Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America, a faculty member in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Curator in Entomology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. He is an authority on coevolution between insects and plants and a specialist on the biology of beetles. He teaches the large introductory course in organismic biology and a Freshmen Seminar in acoustic biology, and is interested in the impact of biophilia on human health. In 2011–2012, he was a Fulbright Scholar to the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Dr. Farrell received a BA in Zoology and Botany from the University of Vermont and MS and PhD from the University of Maryland.

N. Michele Holbrook is Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, Head Tutor in Harvard’s undergraduate program in Environmental Policy and Public Policy, and Director of the Harvard Forest. She teaches introductory and advanced courses on plant biology and plant physiology, as well as courses on trees, forests, and climate change. Her research focuses on the physics and physiology of vascular transport in plants. Dr. Holbrook received her PhD from Stanford University.

Jessica C. Liu is a preceptor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University with a focus on teaching, pedagogy, and curriculum development. Dr. Liu received her BS from The University of Texas at Austin and her PhD in biochemistry from Harvard in 2015. She has been teaching intermediate undergraduate courses along with Robert Lue and Alain Viel since 2016 and is the recipient of multiple teaching awards from Harvard. She also serves as a member of her department’s Board of Tutors in Biochemical Sciences to provide intellectual support and mentorship to undergraduate students.

Jean Heitz was Distinguished Faculty Associate at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, WI. She worked with the two-semester introductory sequence for biological sciences majors for over 40 years. Her primary roles included developing both interactive recitation activities designed to uncover and modify misconceptions in biology and open-ended investigative labs designed to give students a more authentic experience with science. The lab experience engaged all second-semester students in independent research, either mentored research or a library-based meta-analysis of an open question in the literature. She was also the advisor to the Peer Learning Association and was actively involved in TA training. She taught a graduate course in Teaching College Biology, presented active-learning workshops at a number of national and international meetings, and published a variety of lab modules, workbooks, and articles on biology education.

Mark Hens is Associate Professor of Biology at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where he has taught introductory biology since 1996. He is a National Academies Education Mentor in the Life Sciences and is the director of his department’s Introductory Biology Program. In this role, he guided the development of a comprehensive set of assessable student learning outcomes for the two-semester introductory biology course required of all science majors at UNCG. In various leadership roles in general education, both on his campus and statewide, he was instrumental in crafting a common set of assessable student learning outcomes for all natural science courses for which students receive general education credit on the 16 campuses of the University of North Carolina system.

Elena Lozovsky is Principal Staff Scientist in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. She received her PhD in genetics from Moscow State University in Russia and before joining Harvard carried out research at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow, Cornell University, and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Her research has focused on transposable elements and genome evolution in eukaryotes and on the evolution of drug resistance in malaria parasites. She has also had extensive experience in teaching genetics and evolution.

John Merrill is Faculty Emeritus in the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State University. He is former Director of the Biological Sciences Program which administers the core biology curriculum for all MSU science majors. He began his career studying the physiological ecology of marine algae but gradually shifted his focus to research on how undergraduate students learn biology and how to assess that learning. This work culminated in his leading “Beyond Multiple Choice” (beyondmultiplechoice.org) - a large, multi-institutional, NSF-funded project that developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system for computer-automated scoring of open-response assessment items.

Randall Phillis is Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has taught in the majors introductory biology course at this institution for 27 years and is a National Academies Education Mentor in the Life Sciences. With help from the Pew Center for Academic Transformation (1999), he has been instrumental in transforming the introductory biology course to an active learning format that makes use of classroom communication systems. He also directed an NSF-funded project to design model-based reasoning assessment tools for use in class and on exams. These tools are being designed to develop and evaluate student scientific reasoning skills, with a focus on topics in introductory biology. He is currently a core faculty leader in an HHMI Inclusive Excellence grant with a focus on how CUREs in the first year can improve inclusion and success of all students in life science education.

Debra Pires is an Academic Administrator and Vice Chair for the Department of Life Sciences Core Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has been teaching the majors introductory biology courses for 16 years. She is also the Instructional Consultant for the Center for Education Innovation & Learning in the Sciences (CEILS), and a certified trainer for the Mobile Summer Institutes. Many of her efforts are focused on curricular redesign of introductory biology courses. Through her work with CEILS and the MoSIs, she coordinates faculty development workshops that facilitate pedagogical changes associated with curricular developments. Her current research focuses on the impact of the experience of active learning pedagogies in lower-division courses on student performance and concept retention in upper-division courses.