|
Overview:I did my graduate work at the University of Hawai'i, in 1988 getting my Physics Ph.D. studying phase transition models. I then spent five enjoyable years at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. There I developed research interests with various collaborators: 1) fluid flow through porous media problems with Bill Laidlaw; 2) seismic image enhancement with Kris Vasudevan; 3) spatial predator-prey theory with Ed McCauley and Andre de Roos; and 4) floral evolution with Lawrence Harder.I then went to the University of California at Santa Barbara to work with Roger Nisbet. Interactions with Roger, Russ Schmitt, and Craig Osenberg, laid the foundation of my present work on resouce-consumer models. I then gained a faculty position in the Department of Zoology (now Biology) at Duke University in 1996 with a position offered through the Center for Nonlinear and Complex Systems. My interests span theoretical evolutionary ecology, and my approaches include both mathematics and individual-based simulation models. Along these lines I've examined a variety of single- and multiple-species systems to understand how spatial extensions affect population-level dynamics. An ongoing interest is the connection of theoretical and empirical systems. Specific topics I'm working on include (as of 3/1/01): resource-consumer interactions (with several collaborators); animal grouping; hermaphroditism-dioecy mating system models (with L. Harder); obligate mutualism-exploiter systems (with W. Morris and J. Bronstein). |