After receiving my PhD from the University of Kansas in 1977, I came to Colorado to work as a faculty member at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where I have been ever since. I am currently a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and I teach courses in general biology, animal behavior, insect biology, and tropical biology. My research program focuses on the behavior and ecology of social insects, and I have worked on ants, bees, and wasps. I have studied the nestmate recognition, the genetics of colony defense, the behavior of defensive bees, and communication during colony defense. I was Executive Editor of Animal Behaviour from 2006-2009.
As an undergraduate, I was inspired by parasitologist Clark P. Read to think about the ecology and evolution of parasites in new ways. I was especially excited to learn that parasites affected animal behavior, another favorite subject area. Most biologists outside the world of parasitology were not interested in parasites; they were relegated to a nether world someplace between the biology of free-living organisms and medicine. After peregrination through more than one graduate program, I completed my PhD studying parasites and behavior at the University of New Mexico. I did postdoctoral work on parasite community ecology with Dan Simberloff at Florida State University, and then accepted a… faculty position at Colorado State University, where I have remained since 1983. I am currently a Professor in the Department of Biology where I teach courses in invertebrate zoology, animal behavior, and history of medicine. I study a variety of aspects of parasite ecology and host behavior ranging from behavioral fever and transmission behavior to the ecology of introduced parasite species.