Uh, everybody more or less calls me
Dr. A because it's easier to pronounce.
And as I think I tell every class, the
AA can stand for anything you want,
depending on like,
if I'm handing exams back and you
get your grades and you won't even be
disrespectful, if you're
thinking something and you
were saying something else.
Uh, as far as my background, I've been,
I've been at Emory & Henry for six years.
Uh, I'm an associate professor and the
chair of the biology department. Uh,
I've been teaching
undergrads for 25 years.
Uh, I, I come from Boston,
uh, at least, you know,
from the last 20 odd years. That's
where I was before I came here. Um,
uh, my wife is at Northeastern
University. I have three kids. Uh,
one is mechanical engineer who's
finishing up at Northeastern University.
He's currently in California on a
six month co-op working with Abbott,
uh, bioengineering. So doing
some COVID-19 fun stuff. Uh,
my oldest daughter is graduating from
the University of Chicago for grad school
tomorrow. She's an
Egyptian archeologist. Uh,
so I have to drive to Chicago either
very late tonight or early tomorrow
morning, uh, to go pick her up
and all the rest of that stuff.
And then I have a 16 year old,
who's a sophomore in high school.
Who's, uh, hanging out in Chicago doing
the rest of her academic year online.
Cause she doesn't want to hang out with
her parents either in Boston or Virginia.
Uh, so I've been fighting the bio game for
what am I, 53? So, um,
more than half my life, I mean,
essentially I always
liked biology as a kid.
I always played with dead
things. If they weren't dead,
I usually made them dead. Uh, so
I could do do things like that.
Come on, let's not sugarcoat it.
so sometimes I used to do
hunting, trapping, uh, you know,
field biology was kind of
my thing. Uh, as a kid, um,
I went to my undergrad
at Boston University, uh,
changed major six times started as a
bio major, finished as a bio major,
uh, got way too many credits,
but I learned a lot about a lot of other
things and actually made me a more well
rounded person. Um, so, you know,
even though I came from a
big university for undergrad,
I did get a lot of the liberal
arts stuff that, that, you know,
we do kind of focus in here on Emory. Uh,
I did my masters at Northeastern
University, uh, focusing
on vertebrate zoology.
So I study things that have backbones, uh,
I kind of specialized in
vertebrate paleontology and
I did research on reptiles
and amphibians kind of crossing over from
the end of the dinosaurs timeframe to,
um, after the dinosaurs timeframe.
Cause they didn't go extinct,
but their big cousins did. So,
uh, made it kind of interesting,
um,
what else got my PhD went back
to Northeastern University
to get my PhD there.
Um, did two different PhD research
projects. First one was on, uh,
vector borne disease, uh, looking
at, uh, mechanical vectors,
uh,
distributors of parasitic and
infectious disease causing organisms.
And then I switched, uh,
I think a year or two into that PhD
project to somebody else who was doing
something a little too similar.
So I had to kind of switch, uh,
see, importance of doing a
really good literature search.
If you don't do it comes
back and bites you in the ass, uh,
profanity, Oh no, uh, and then, uh,
I focused on evolutionary
biology geography and uh,
let me show you an evolution.
So, um, from my background,
it's kind of like,
I'm your typical jack of
all trades master of none.
Uh, I mean, if you try to figure out
what I like to do for research, um,
you wouldn't really, you know, be
able to guess because you know,
at one point I'll take you guys to the
department of webpage and show you all
the faculty and show you kind of walk,
walk you through that if you haven't
taken a look at it yet, but, uh,
I've had a lot of research
students, uh, here at Emory.
Cause one of the things that you do
as part of the bachelor of science in
biology is you do kind of a
mentored slash independent,
uh, at least one, uh, research project.
And we used to call it a senior
independent research project,
but we've been pushing you guys to start
earlier and earlier and earlier in the
process of your education,
because the more research you do,
the more projects you get involved in,
the more hands on learning you
get into the whole goal is to,
is to, is to turn you into
a well rounded biologist,
uh, not a specialist
in any particular area.
So I've had students that have worked on
three different research projects, um,
mostly with me,
but three separate projects
over the course of three
or four years since they've
been working, uh, with me. And, you know,
some of them have been Island
biogeography projects, uh,
looking at small mammals that live on
the coastal islands up in the Northeast
and the Canadian Maritimes, uh,
looking at kind of like the
evolutionary biogeography of those,
uh, vector borne disease,
looking at ticks,
Lyme disease, rare Catskill diseases
in the Southern Appalachians,
uh,
parasitic protozoal like cryptosporidium
and Giardia being transmitted by birds
as they go from one body of water
to another body of water, uh,
evolution of antibiotic resistance
in the gut microflora of horses and
domesticated animals and
looking at how that can, uh,
that resistance can, can transfer
across species. So, you know,
for animals to people
and, you know, again,
that kind of ties into to
vector borne disease as well,
and a skeletal pathologies of, um,
of mammals, for example, uh, one of my
students is looking at nonhuman primates.
We're doing stuff in various research
collections, looking at a lot of the, um,
the bone diseases that you see
in humans. Uh, she wants to be,
she wants to be an orthopedic surgeon,
you know, after she's done with Emory.
And, um,
we got talking in gen bio last fall.
She was a freshmen. And from that
point we started talking, uh,
I picked her up as a student. Uh,
she got two grants to
support her research. Uh,
she has a summer fellowship this year, uh,
supposed to be working with me and
we're supposed to travel to museums,
but COVID-19 kinda messed up our,
our ability to travel to museums.
So I've got her doing a lot of
online museum stuff and, and,
and disease related stuff.
And then we're gonna go hit
museums between Thanksgiving
and Christmas and then,
and then into the spring. But,
uh, you know, she's, you know,
we applied and got a scholar
or a fellowship for her
from the Appalachia College
Association, um,
or she's getting paid $4,000
this summer to do her research.
Um,
and we've got an additional
thousand dollars to get her
to travel to the various
museums to do it. So, you know, one
of the things that you do do do do,
uh, one of the things that
you do do as a
Abigail's like, Oh man, I gotta sign off,
but how do I do this now? Um, I mean,
one of the things that
you do end up doing a lot,
particularly with the BS in biology
is you learn how to design develop and
execute, um, research. And
just because, you know,
you're a college
freshmen, for example, um,
it doesn't mean you can't start research
now because essentially we're always
looking for students that are really,
really interested in getting into
research as early as possible because it's
riddled with mistakes failures. You know,
most of the time you fail more
than you succeed in science. Um,
if you've ever done experimental work
in labs, you know, nine times out of 10,
you're like, well, it didn't work.
This is what you should have seen,
and we're going to use this data.
So you can actually finish
the analysis because you know,
most of the time
something gets screwed up.
So the more research you do during the
time, you're at Emory, the greater,
the likelihood is you're
going to get the hang of it.
And if you decide to go on to
graduate research programs,
one,
it helps you get into those programs
because they know you already know how to
do it. Um,
because part of what you also do when you
do research with us is you present the
results of those, of the research
you do at scientific meetings. Uh,
you'll usually present
at two, sometimes three,
um, conferences over the course of
your time as a bio major. You know,
the first, first, one's always easy.
We have you do it at Emory & Henry
on science fest at Ampersand Day.
But you know, some students it's like,
they've never sat there and presented
anything to a room of a hundred plus
people, and they're already freaking
out about that. But then you do that.
You go to a regional conference
and you do a poster session.
You do a talk the following year and you
network and you learn about the other
research people are doing. So
it's all tied into the kind of
research based curriculum that we have
in biology to kind of get you guys used
to, um, applying the
scientific method, uh,
on top of building a really,
really well rounded, uh,
background in biology because, uh,
when you major in biology
at Emory & Henry,
regardless of what you want
to do at the end of the day,
if you want to go to
medical school, great,
both my parents are retired physicians.
Um, I'm the black sheep of the family.
I'm the PhD. Um,
if you want to go to get to school
that school optometry school,
um, a doctor physical therapy,
a physician's assistant,
you can go to all of those
with a biology degree.
This is the big difference between when
you look at like the biology degree and
some of the more specialized
like health science degrees,
like exercise science or things like
that. You know, if you were thinking, Oh,
I want to go get a doctorate
of physical therapy.
Cause I want to be a PT. When I,
when I finish and halfway
through the program,
you decide that you think I want
to do physician's assistant,
or I want to go to medical school.
It's like two steps forward,
three steps back because now you gotta
rearrange and restart and do a whole
bunch of stuff because the programs
are fundamentally different.
Whereas with biology, it's kind of like,
it really does cover a lot of the
bases so that you can go in any,
any direction. I mean, we've had
graduates over the last few years,
go to PA PT, Endio, uh,
vet school, uh, and then
miscellaneous, uh, and, uh,
masters and PhD, uh, research
based programs. So, uh,
the good
Thing about, uh,
a bachelor of science in biology is it
gives you a lot of flexibility about the
direction that you want
to go. Cause like I said,
I changed major six times when I was
your age. I mean, you're all both,
you're probably both about 18 years
old. I got boots older than you.
And I've been saying that for a
long you're, you're even younger 17,
17 or 16? Okay.
So, um, so you were,
are you a rising senior or are you,
uh, just, uh, handling it? Okay.
So you still have time
to think which is good,
but that's the thing it's
kind of like, you know,
you're most interested in whatever you
did last and if you keep your options
open, I mean, as much as I'd like to say,
come to Emory & Henry major in
biology, the BS, cause that's like,
that's like the test
scores versus like, okay,
I can do a BA in biology and
that's like your Chevy volt.
And everybody wants a Tesla. I used
to say, this is the Cadillac and this,
this is just your basic Chevy. And
people were like, what's a Cadillac.
And I'm just like, Oh, nevermind.
So we go with the Tesla and the Chevy
volt now, or the Prius, you know,
something kind of in
between. But, um, I mean,
essentially if you come in and you
you're like, I want to do biology,
I really liked biology.
And I think I want to go into
graduate health science and the PA PT,
whatever. Okay. That's cool.
But don't focus so far down at the
end game that you kind of like,
I don't really pay attention to the four
years in between because whatever you
choose to do after you graduate,
uh, at Emory & Henry or,
or wherever you end up
finally choosing, uh, to go,
uh, it's gotta be, it's gotta be
what you want to do. You know,
it's not what your parents want you to do.
And I hope your parents aren't
in the background listening.
Cause then they're gonna come
into the screen and be like, Oh,
she wants to be a doctor.
And then you'll be like,
well actually I want to be an
interpretive dance major. Um,
you can still become an MD if you're
an interpretive dance major. It's just,
it's just a little bit harder to go that
route because you don't want to figure
out that you're not good in science
when you're, when you've just paid that,
you know, first a hundred thousand
dollars of tuition for medical school.
And then you're like, ah, yeah, I
don't feel like I'm prepared for this.
So, um, whatever major
you choose to do, um,
do it because you really like it
because this is the only time, you know,
the next four years, you know,
whenever you get into college and,
and start that game, um,
that's the only choice you're going to
have relative to the classes that you
take, you know, taking a class
cause you're like, Oh, you know,
I've always wanted to take this, you know,
pottery class and that'll
fulfill my artistic expression.
But you know, after
you get done with this,
and then you go on to grad
school for the better part,
you don't have as much choice,
particularly if it's a graduate
professional program like medical school,
you know, and those types,
they're going to tell you what you're
going to take when you're going to take
it, whether you like it or not, they
don't care. That's the curriculum.
And that's what you're going to do.
At least with undergraduate college,
you get some degree of choice, you
know, even in the things it's like,
you got to take one course in this area
and maybe you have like 20 different
choices of the courses that would
fulfill that particular thing.
And the bio major, uh,
like I said before, your,
you become a well rounded
biology, um, biologists.
You're not a molecular biologist, you
know, biochemistry or physiologist.
You're not an anatomist, uh, you're not a,
an ecologist or zoologist. It's like,
you're a biologist and you know
enough about all of those areas.
So that if you decide you like, you know,
I want to go to graduate
school and I wanted to,
I want to go into ecology
because I like the outdoors.
I like doing this and that, but I don't
know if I want to do plants or animals.
Maybe I want to do both well,
you've had enough training.
So you kind of understand what the role
of plants and animals are and how they
interact in the system.
And then you've had enough basic ecology
that you could go on and you could do a
graduate program and ecology or a
graduate program in zoology or botany or
biochemistry or, or, or,
or whatever you want.
So you're a biologist first, and
then you can specialize later. Um,
the cool thing too,
is depending on how many extra courses
you already have from either AP
dual enrollment, things like that,
you know, most people tend to think,
you're like, Hey, if,
if I have all these extra courses that
I've already taken in high school,
I can finish college sooner. I can get
out in three years instead of four,
and then I can go on and do my thing.
Yeah, you couldn't do that. Uh,
usually it, it's never that
simple and never that easy,
you wind up doing like three and a
half years or an extra semester here.
And that winds up being
four years. Anyway. Um,
reality of the situation is the more
courses you take in your particular major,
maybe you say, okay,
I'm going to take a few extra bio courses
because I have that flexibility built
in because I don't need to take some of
these courses that I already took in,
uh, in high school, dual enrollment or AP,
it makes you better at your chosen
area or you're like, Hmm. Well,
I have to take for chemistry.
Courses for biology are
either one of you thinking,
going like a medicine
in the future, maybe.
Yes. And maybe, okay. So if
you're there, you're like, okay,
well I want to go to med school. You have
to take biochemistry. It's like, okay,
well,
if you take biochemistry and you
count it towards a chemistry minor,
and then you take microbiology
because you're like, well,
microbiology is important for being a
physician because of all the infectious
diseases that are caused by bacteria and
viruses and various things like that,
that kind of get lumped into microbiology.
But then you only need one more course.
And now you have a chemistry minor,
and there's a lot of chemistry,
a lot of biochemistry
and a lot of physiology.
When you think about medicine,
so don't be in a rush to get out.
No, I know it all, you know,
it's like, you can save money,
but it's kind of like if you also try to
pack know, you've heard the expression.
If you try to pack 10
pounds in a five pound bag,
you get covered in a lot of crap because
the bag rips and everything gets messy.
If you try to shortcut the process.
Cause I was talking to somebody for about
an hour and a half this morning, um,
who's a new bio major and they had
a bunch of dual enrollment courses.
And her father basically was like, Oh,
is it possible to finish in three
years instead of four because of those
courses? And I said, yeah, it's possible.
But then you're stacking a lot of the
tougher courses at the same time and it
stresses you out. You might not
be able to fit everything in.
You might have to take
summer courses anyway.
And if you don't do well because you're
taking organic chemistry and physics at
the same time, organic chemistry, physics,
and biochemistry at the same time,
and you don't do well in those courses,
the medical schools that are looking at
your transcripts going to be like, well,
pretty late in the game
she wasn't handling.
Or he wasn't handling a lot of
hard courses at the same time.
Pretty well.
All courses in medical school taken
at the same time are hard courses.
So it sends kind of a,
is this person going to be able
to handle the curriculum in,
in med school if they're really
trying, if they're struggling now,
when they're taking several hard
courses at the same time. So it can,
it can be very dangerous if you try to
finish early just for the sake of money,
because bottom line is whatever
debt, you know, and again, you know,
I've got two kids in college, grad school
and one more coming in two years. So,
you know,
I figured I'm going to be working till
I'm a hundred just to pay everything off
so they can do what they have to do.
And that's okay because that's
what you do as a parent.
But know
When you're spending a lot
of money, one more semester,
one more year at the undergrad
level. When you're thinking about,
if you go to medical school,
you're looking at a hundred
thousand dollars a year in costs.
You want to be able to borrow that
money from the bank to get that loan,
to go to medical school. And
if you're saving, you know,
a few thousand dollars, $10,000,
because you finish a little bit early,
but you don't do as well. And
then you don't get into school.
It wasn't really worth, you know,
the pittance of saving in the
long run because you're going to,
you're going to end up making at least
a million to $2 million in a career over
the course of your lifetime. You
know, working on average 20, 30,
35 years, cause everybody lives
longer now. So it's kind of,
it's easy to say. Don't worry
about the money situation now,
because now is when you're worrying
about the money situation. But, um,
you always have to think kind
of the long, the long term.
And sometimes it's better to
take a little bit more time,
take a few more courses,
do a little bit more research because
when you think about the future,
anything graduate, if you've made
the cut for grades, you know,
your GPA is this your SAT or your GRE
scores, your MCAT scores are this,
and it's gotten you to
the point of interview.
They're not going to talk to you
about your grades in that interview.
Every student that I've had,
I think I've had four in the last six
years that have gone on to medical school.
In every view they had
every interview, they had,
they never talked about their grades
because their grades were good enough to
get them the interview. Also what they
did besides the academic stuff, got them,
the interview and the fact that they all
did research and they all did a lot of
research.
That's all they talked about with the
people on those interview committees,
because that's what made them stand
out from all those other applicants.
You know, cause most kids don't get
to do a lot of independent research.
You know, you go to the big
universities, you figure,
this is how many kids there are compared
to how many faculty who are not really
focused on the undergraduate
side of things.
They're more focused on the graduate
side and their own research.
And they teach undergraduate courses.
You know, the big researching, you know,
universities because well, they
have to, it's not that they want to,
whereas here we all want to.
And it's kind of like the research that
we do and the research we do with you
guys, you know, that's,
what's going to make you stand out
compared to everybody else in the game.
And when they look at the curriculum
in the biology department, you know,
they're going to see that you've taken,
I've taken all the usual courses,
all bio majors take gen
biology, organismal bio,
which is kind of like geology and
botany. You all take genetics,
you all take evolutionary biology.
The BS is all do research.
You have like a research seminar,
junior seminar, senior seminar.
So everybody's taking
that core set of courses.
And then everybody takes four upper level
electives and you take one elective,
at least one elective from
each of the four core areas.
We have an ecology area.
So you have three maybe four courses
to choose from that fulfill that
requirement. Uh, you have
a cell molecular category,
cell molecular biochemical or biochemistry
area. And there are three, I think,
courses right now
That are in that block. So you
pick one of those, you have, uh,
an organismal category.
So you can take vertebrate
zoology or tropical biology,
which is a course that I teach along with,
uh, the plant population, genetics
professor, Dr. Bresowar. Um,
you know, it's essentially,
Neotropical biology,
zoology botany ecology and we take
students for at the end of the course.
We always teach it in the spring and
even years at the end of the course,
we take students for two weeks
into the field in Panama, uh,
to run around in the jungle cloud
forest. And actually, you know,
you get to see all the stuff that we
talked about in the class. And you, you,
you execute team research projects that
you've been developing over the course
of the semester, uh, when
you're down in country.
And it also fulfills
your, um, study, you know,
your abroad requirement for the college.
So it kind of kills two birds with
one stone, but, um, it's always fun,
you know, to do that. We didn't get to
go this year because of the pandemic,
but I'm probably gonna take,
whoever's still around.
That wants to go from
this past year next year.
And then I'd probably do it
again the following year.
And then you take an upper level,
um, structure, function category.
So that's where you could
take a physiology course.
You could take a comparative anatomy
course or a developmental biology course.
So, you know, you get,
you get a piece of the four core areas
of biology plus evolution plus genetics
and some of the basic stuff.
And then if you have extra courses because
you took a bunch of stuff while you
were in high school,
you're like I can take an extra biology
course or take an extra chemistry
course. You know, for me, when I was
at an undergrad at Boston University,
when I finally figured
out after, you know, six,
six turns of the wheel that
I want to be a bio major,
I took a bunch of extra biology courses.
I think I took four or five extra bio
courses because my parents were just like,
Oh, if you want to stay another
year, stay another year,
take some more biology courses. So, um,
and I didn't really know
how important some of those
courses would be until 10,
15, 20 years.
Usually I figured it out when I actually
had to start teaching stuff that was
connected to undergraduate stuff that I
did or some other stuff in grad school
that they made me do. I
was kind of like, well,
I'm actually glad now that they made me
take these particular courses outside of
my, my interests. Cause all I
cared about were animals. You know,
zoology was my thing. I didn't
care about molecular biology. Um,
they made me take some of
it and a big chunk of my,
my PhD research was molecular work or
looking at animals and looking at the
evolutionary, um, patterns of
dispersal, you know, on these islands,
after the last ice age. So it's kind of,
You never know what, what you're going
to need until you need it. You know,
it's kind of like, well, it's never
a problem until it's a problem.
So it's like we try to avoid
the problems. It's like,
we give you enough information. So
knowing you're going to change your mind,
knowing you're going to have
different opportunities.
Once you leave Emory that you may really
need to recall some of that information
from organismal biology. When dr.
A was talking about that pesky
zoonotic disease, diseases of animals,
jumping into people, you know, why don't
we care about that? Well, you know,
we're in a pandemic and basically it's
an animal disease that jumped species
barriers and came into people. So
it's like, um, one of the, you know,
this past spring,
when I was talking about that at the
very beginning of the term, you know,
I said, anybody ever hear of SARS,
severe acute respiratory syndrome caused
by a Coronavirus first kind of small
pandemic in 2003. I
remember that one, you know,
cause I was caught up in
that one. And then I said,
there's a SARS Corona vary two right
now in China that is starting to cause
problems. And then they're like, Oh,
you think this is going to be a problem.
A lot of people are saying, Oh
it's yeah. I'm like, wait, watch.
Like almost every class that we met,
I pull up the Johns Hopkins
site and show us like, look,
the cases are increasing
in number, Oh look,
they're starting to occur here and
you're drawing the lines and I'm like,
you will not be coming back after spring
break because we are going to send you
home and you're not going to be allowed
to come back because the pandemic is
going to really be in
full swing. And it's like,
I hate being right about these things,
but it's kind of like, you know,
this is also why a lot of the stuff we
make you take that you don't see the
point of it. Now you see the point
of it later when it really matters.
And you're kind of like, it's kind of,
it's kind of cool because you know,
you can understand what, you know,
the medical experts are talking about
or the epidemiologists are talking about
because you know,
maybe we spent a week or two weeks
talking about this in one class,
you got another piece of it,
another class, um, you know,
looking at molecular genetics
and looking at how mutations can,
can cause major problems later down,
down the line. So it's kind of,
I really like our program,
you know, one in part,
because it's better than
the ones that I came from.
And part of the reason
why we developed it,
the way we have it now is because all of
us were unhappy fundamentally with the
education that we got as undergrads,
relative to biology and said,
we've got to make it better here for
the students that are coming to Emory.
And both of you are looking
at a potentially good
time to come because we're
looking at changing,
not changing, changing,
but we're going to start
offering concentrations or tracks
In biology. So there's going
to be one track that's um,
like a biomedical science track.
So if you're really into
biomedical technology,
if you're into molecular
biology, biochemistry, you're
still gonna have to take,
you know, some of the other things to
keep you well rounded. But you know,
if you're thinking I
want to go to med school,
I want to go to that school or
something along those lines,
there are specific courses that you can
pick that are gonna make you a stronger
candidate for that. We're
also going to have a,
either an organismal and evolutionary
biology track or probably a wildlife and
conservation biology track.
So for the ones who are like,
I don't really like the outdoor
stuff. I really like animals.
I really like plants.
I'm like, okay, you know,
I can take some electrical biology
that's okay. Cause you know,
it connects to it. You
concentrate in that track.
We're also going to have a health
sciences, um, concentration, you know,
for those that want to go on to like
DPT programs for physical therapy
physicians, assistant nurse practitioner,
optometry, things like
that. So it's kind of,
they'll be little bit more defined
pathways depending on what you want to do.
But the good thing is even if you
change your mind sophomore year,
junior year, the core courses
that you're taking are the same.
So you could just switch
and then change direction.
And it's not like you have to back up,
take extra courses and
go from there. So, uh,
so biology is going to be changing
and it's going to be evolving,
but it's not going to be,
it's not going to go to producing
specialist. It's like, you know,
you just have a little bit more
information, more coursework in this area,
but you're still a well rounded,
uh, biologist in the end. Um,
so let me just show you real quick in
like two minutes of department site.
And then I'll let you
guys introduce yourselves.
Tell me a little bit about yourselves
and ask questions so sooner or later I'll
get good at the whole, um,
zoom thing. Uh,
just when we actually get back to face
to face and don't have to do it anymore,
I'm probably still going to do it
just to record classes. So when you,
when you miss class, because you're
sick or wherever the case is,
you still have the whole class that
you can watch, uh, after the fact.
All right. So, uh, here's our
lovely, uh, Emory & Henry,
uh, pond spent a lot of money
on that pond getting it nice.
Um, but at least you
can fly fish. You know,
that we do fly fishing courses so you
can learn how to fly fish and you know,
they cast and they practice in the pond.
So if you go to the general Emory &
Henry site, then you go to academics,
click on academics. There's a Charles Fay,
he's one of the physics and
engineering science professors
scroll down. Here's all the cool
things that you can study at Emory,
but the coolest one is biology
and it's right there. Right?
So you click on that. Oh look.
So that's Madison that's
Liberty and that's Carly.
All three of them were my
research students. I had
them in multiple courses for,
Or their entire time at Emory.
That picture was taken. Okay.
The Association of Southeastern
Biologists meeting in Memphis in 2019,
all three of them presented
their research. Um,
it was the second time for Madison and
Liberty presenting their research at that
meeting. Uh,
Madison's starting at William and
Mary for a master's in microbiology.
Her research was on, um, uh,
antibiotic resistance in wild
horses. So she was looking at,
um, the gut microbiome in, um,
horses from the outer banks islands. The,
I don't know if you all have heard of
the Grayson Highlands mountains ponies.
Um, so she looked at those guys,
plus she also looked at, at, uh,
horses from the Emory & Henry barn and
did kind of a comparative antibiotic
resistance analysis. Uh, she
spent a summer last summer,
uh, at, uh,
James Madison in an R1
lab doing antibiotic resistance,
uh, research because they were like,
Oh, you know, they liked her project.
They liked her presentation at the meeting
and she applied for a friends of the
sciences fellowship,
which would basically pay $5,000
for her to go and, you know,
work with a researcher at a, you know,
a big research university
for the summer. And, um,
She actually was offered a spot in the PA
Program at James Madison,
but she turned that one down and went to
William and Mary because she liked the
grad students and the professors
at William and Mary better.
But that's the thing
It's kind of like the
research that she did.
And she initially wanted
to go to medical school
And then she changed direction after she
got into the research and doing a lot
of field work. Um, she may still wind
up in, in medicine later down the line.
But I think right now she's thinking
PhD in microbiology and looking at
infectious disease and things like
that. We have already, she, uh,
was working on parasitic protozoans
so like cryptosporidium and Giardia,
you know, these are small single cell.
You carry Arctic organisms that
cause diarrheal disease. And she was
Doing a lot of field work and lab work.
She was collecting a lot of Canada
Goose feces from coastal,
North Carolina and Virginia,
all the way to Tennessee looking at
different bodies of water and testing the
feces, looking for the presence
of these parasitic, uh,
organisms that cause diarrheal disease
in people and looking at the perspective
that the geese are actually transmitting
these organisms to other geese in
different populations, you know, when
they stop and they hang out, they poop,
they eat with other birds.
So it was kind of a,
a vector born ecology,
uh, project. And that's,
that was actually my first PhD
project that I was working on and, uh,
ended up not doing it and
Liberty was interested in it.
And she worked on that project for
about two and a half years. Um,
so fundamentally about the same as a
master's level project that she did,
Carly, the one on the right, uh, Oh,
and Liberty is going to
Ohio State University for a
master's in epidemiology and
public health. And then she's going
to continue on in that program, uh,
for a PhD in microbiology
and then Carly on the right.
She wanted to go to vet school, her
project with me, she was looking at,
uh, healed fractures in the long bone.
So the legs and the arms,
um, uh, flying squirrels,
tree squirrels and ground squirrels,
kind of looking at, you know,
who has higher rates of incidents,
of, of healed fractures, you know,
cause most of the time you think when an
animal breaks his bones in the wild and
there's no veterinary intervention
it's going to die. Well,
it turns out that's not the case because
we found a lot of healed fractures and
specimens in the museum in
flying squirrels tree squirrels,
you know, and they do
survive. Uh, and she's, she's,
she's going to be at NC State,
starting in the fall, uh,
doing a master of science in animal
science and is probably going to apply for
vet school after that. And you know,
it ended up just being the three of us
driving to Memphis for that meeting that
year because
Other people just get in.
Yeah, they just couldn't go. It was
one of those weird years, but uh,
I take students every year
to that meeting this year,
it was canceled because of COVID-19,
but we were going to Jacksonville. Um,
Madison and Liberty were going to go give
talks and present their research this
time around. And then I had,
we had six other students presenting
at that meeting and another five couple
that were freshmen just going so
that they could actually experience a
scientific meeting and kind of see
what kind of research other people were
doing. So the sooner
you get into research,
um, the better off you're going
to be. I mean, I picked up
Three
Freshmen this year. Uh,
one's already got two grants. Uh,
she's got a summer fellowship and she's
going to be working on, um, nonhuman,
primate skeletal pathologies with me, um,
at Harvard and a couple of other museums
that we're going to go to. Um, so she,
she got in early, you know, right after
gen bio, we just started talking and,
you know, she wants to be an
orthopedic surgeon. So I'm like, well,
I got a project that you might
be interested in. And, uh,
and that's usually the way it, things
tend to work out. It's kind of like,
you can, you can get into
the research in most cases,
as soon as you want to give
it a try. Um, because again,
the more research you do and
the different, if you do two,
three different projects, even if it's
with the same person, but you're doing,
you know,
a continuous project that's evolving
and spins off a new project,
you know, once you've, you know,
knocked one part of it out after a year
or a year and a half every time you do
the next project, it's easier and
it's better than the previous one.
So you get really good at applying the
scientific method and the more coursework
you have under your belt as
you get farther wrong, um,
everything starts to, you know, kind
of connect and come together. Um,
so again, you know, when you get the
opportunity, just there's Dr. Felix,
he's a evolutionary biologist, theologist.
He specializes in Cretaceous
fishes, and also Moray eels.
You know, that's kind of his thing.
That's a human anatomy course.
I think that he was teaching at that
point in time because I recognize a few of
the people and they tend not
actually, none of them are bio majors.
These are all like psych majors and
other things. The Rachel's like, yeah,
I recognize Safa. And I recognize a few
of these other people, but it's like,
again, you know, if you
major in psychology,
you have to minor in one of the natural
sciences and a lot of them minor in
biology because they want to go
to some type of graduate, um,
health science program. Uh, as
far as facilities, you know,
we've got a greenhouse that it's a
research based greenhouse, uh, Dr.
Fleet, who's our, uh,
kind of like a plant biochemist.
She also teaches genetics. She does
a lot of work involving plants, uh,
Dr. Bresowar, he's a plant
population, geneticist.
He does stuff with the greenhouse and
he also is kind of the curator of the
herbarium, you know, a bunch
of preserved plant specimens.
So it has a lot of molecular
work with those things too.
We got a lot of molecular
biology stuff. Um,
I'm not in the molecular biology
mood right now. It's like, you know,
I'll come back to that.
If anybody wants to get any of you guys
want to work on like Island biogeography
and molecular genetics
of Iowan mice, you know,
I've got projects that you can work
on to get your feet wet. And then I,
I basically take care of the zoological
teaching and research collection.
We also have the Bartlett Crow field
station, which, um, it's about 72 acres,
a bunch of different
habitats. Uh, it's a great
campus owned research site that
you can do. Uh, fuel-based studies.
We take you guys out there for
several classes to do small
projects, and, you know,
a lot of times y'all just go out there
on your own. And you're, you know,
you're kind of working on
your projects, um, you know,
unhindered by us old faculty, uh,
as far as research goes again. Um,
so a few examples of some of the projects,
uh, presentations, things like that.
You can click on, you
know, our alumni and the,
and the cool stuff they do. And then
let's see, what else do we have? Oh,
they're lovely faculty. Uh,
so we've got six faculty members in the
department of biology plus a bunch of
affiliated faculty.
And there's me. Um, Dr.
Bova is currently in Afghanistan,
he's in the army, um,
with an environmental
an environmental unit.
So he's been there since
October and he'll be back in,
hopefully he'll be back in July. Uh,
he's an entomologist. So he studies,
uh, insects, you know,
that's kind of his thing.
And he also studies diseases that insects
can actually transmit, uh, to people,
uh, this young fellow over here, he's
actually older than he looks. Uh,
that's Dr. Bresowar he's plant
population geneticist. Um,
Dr. Campbell, she's a microbiologist.
So she does a lot of work
with gut biome stuff. Uh,
does a lot of research at, uh, with
colleagues at ETSU in Johnson City.
So that's a good
collaboration where, you know,
you can actually work in two different
settings because they have more resources
at ETSU than we have here. Um, the
stern looking fellow here, that's Dr.
Fielitz. He's actually my mentor. He was
the chair of the department when, when,
when they shanghaied me to come to
Emory & Henry six years ago. And,
and now I'm the chair of the department.
I think I was hoodwinked somehow, but,
uh, he works with Cretaceous fishes.
He's a vertebrate paleontologist at
theologists. So fishes are his thing.
He also teaches comparative
anatomy, evolutionary bio,
and then last but not
least is Dr. Fleet. Uh,
she's the natural science
division head, uh,
plant biochemist also teaches genetics,
microbiology, biochemistry. Um,
so you will have all of us at some
point in time in the courses you take in
biology,
you're going to have courses with every
single faculty member in biology. Um,
in most cases more than what we have
affiliated faculty that, you know,
also do research along biological
lines, uh, Dr. Davis he's,
he's tied in heavily to the environmental
studies program. He's also a chair of,
uh, of the geography department. Uh, Dr.
Theirs is the head of the
equine studies program.
She's an animal nutrition type. And, um,
she often she can also mentor
students from our department.
If you wanted to do something
along the lines, like say,
I'm thinking about going
to vet school. You know,
I want to work with large animals.
I want to be a large animal vet.
You can do research with Dr. Patty.
You can do that for your project,
kind of crossing over into the equine
study side. And, you know, a lot of,
uh, students that want
to go to vet school,
we got a lot of double majors between
equine studies and biology, you know,
kind of heading down
the, the vet track. Uh,
Steven Hopp is an ornithologist.
He teaches a number of courses in
the environmental studies program.
And those are some of the courses that
you, you can take those courses too. Um,
uh, they kind of connect with the
biology of curriculum, because again, um,
there are certain courses
outside of specific bio
courses that you need to take,
and you have options depending
on what your interests are,
where you can take them from. So a lot
of the environmental studies courses, um,
Dr. Hopp teaches and he's, you know, a
lot of fieldy type classes, which are,
which are always good. Uh, Dr. Hainesworth
she's in the chemistry department,
she's also the director of the,
um, Bartley Crowe field station.
She also teaches a lot of environmental
studies, as well as chemistry courses,
analytical chemistry, um,
is one of the courses that she teaches
that a lot of the students who go for the
minor in bio and chemistry,
because you've already taken
four and you just need two more,
you take biochemistry, and then
you take analytical chemistry,
you got a chem minor. Um, and then
there's Dr. Boaz. He's actually,
he was the head of anatomy up at
the School for Health Sciences.
He's actually an MD, but he's also
a PhD in integrative biology and
paleo anthropology.
So he's done a lot of work with
hominid evolution of human evolution,
um, uh, prior to becoming
an MD and kind of,
um, running the anatomy labs.
But he's somebody that, you know,
I'm still gonna maintain a
working relationship with, uh,
and probably have him
come on with students, um,
for projects and things like that.
But when you get the opportunity
to check out the, uh,
the biology department website,
you know, you can look at the, um,
let's see,
and this will be modified once we
get the concentrations in there,
we still have to add in kind of
like a premed pre health, you know,
uh, section. But, you know, you can
look at, these are the courses that you,
you know, everybody takes, uh, whether
you're a BA or a BS in biology.
And then these are the categories
of cell molecular biochem, category,
structure, function, population, ecology,
and the typical courses that you would
take. You take one from each of these.
Um, listen, one, two,
one, two, three. Yeah.
We're missing the upper level organism
go figure or not. Huh? This is messed up.
I hate that. Um, that's funny. Um,
so I've got to make a change here.
So, uh, basically you're taking,
you'd have four subject areas.
This one actually should be, um,
upper level organizational function.
There'd be comparative anatomy, um,
general physiology, developmental
biology. So somebody messed up my,
my department page. So I gotta
fix that, uh, but check it out.
And if you have questions about
that, you can basically, um,
email me and we can talk
about all the different things,
but that's pretty much
all I've got, you know,
in the 15 minutes that I've been talking.
So now at this point in time, uh,
why don't you guys unmute yourselves
that way you can, you know, we can,
you can tell me about yourselves
and you know, what you,
what you like about biology and
what you want to do with your lab.
And then any questions you have,
I can, I can try to answer,
Um, hi, I'm Abigail,
I'm a recent graduate from high school
and I live on the Tennessee side of Bristol.
So I only live about 25 minutes
away from Emory's campus. Um,
yeah. And I'm a cancer
survivor. So that's,
that was, that's one of the things that
made me really interested in biology.
And I also have a brother who has
down syndrome and our mom is a nurse
practitioner. So I've been around
the medical field for my entire life.
Um, I'm really interested in
doing something in public health.
I think epidemiology
is like my top choice.
Oh, excellent. Yeah.
And we do have a lot of
students that go that direction.
So it's kind of, you know,
we'll definitely talk more
about that stuff because,
you know, if that's the
direction you want to go,
we can kind of look at projects,
research projects that are connected to,
you know, they have an
epidemiology, um, focus on it,
like looking at disease transmission
within populations, among populations, uh,
across species, uh, barriers, you know,
vector borne disease. So it's kind of,
you know, um, that's a cool area. I mean,
if I, if I have the time, you know,
I would probably go get a,
because I took a couple of epidemiology
courses because my original research
project was kind of looking at
the epidemiology side of, um,
um, zoonotic diseases. And
I wasn't sure what direction I wanted
to go. So I was kind of like, wow,
I can always get a master's in
public health. My wife was, um, uh,
an epidemiologist for the state of
Massachusetts up there at the state labs
before she went to Northeastern. So
she did a lot of foodborne illness,
epidemiological investigations, you know,
chasing down outbreaks and figuring
out, you know, where the bad,
what caused all these people
to get sick, you know,
that went to this wedding or things like
that. So, uh, always interesting stuff.
But, uh, now that sounds pretty cool.
And have you decided, you decided,
are you definitely coming to Emory
or are you still Oh, excellent.
So are you planning on living on campus?
I'm sorry. I'm actually going to commute.
And we used to, at least at the
beginning, let's say it saves money.
And also you're kind of like, well,
we're not done with this pandemic yet,
so maybe it's best to just, you know,
commute back and forth, but you know,
at some point in time, you
know, we'll get you on campus.
And then you'll probably, you
know, part of what's really,
really good about living
on campus is you're not,
you're not like, Oh, I have
to go home now. Or, you know,
it's getting late because so many students
are working in the building in the
United, in McGlaughlin street
where the science building is, um,
except for physics, you know,
where we keep physics and math and another
building because they're irritating.
But, uh, so many students spend, you
know, until the late hours at night,
you know, in the labs doing
research, studying group sessions,
you know, I usually see because
I'm there late at night,
most of the time anyway, because,
um, all my family is in other places.
So I've got nothing else to do. Plus all
the people in there. I'm always there.
It's sad,
but until two o'clock in the morning
when the students are still there. Yeah.
And I'm like, you guys should go home
and they're like, you should go home.
And I'm like, why don't we all go home?
And then, so it's not bad. But, um,
no, I mean, I think that that'll be good.
And then, uh, we'll definitely talk,
um, in the fall.
Do you know what classes they've
got you in at this point?
I still need to register
for classes, but it'll,
I'm signed up for the June registration,
so it's not that far away. Okay.
And then, um, if you have questions or
if you're, if you, you know, realist,
have you taken general biology,
dual enrollment or anything?
I have, I have not.
No, that's that's okay. Because then,
you know, you get everything from us. Um,
so depending on like, you know,
your SAT scores, how you did in high
school science and courses you've taken,
it will determine whether they put you
right into gen bio for majors or put you
into kind of the prereq course. But
if, if your advisor isn't sure, I mean,
realistically, you should need
to be going into bio 117.
That's the majors biology, um, or bio 100,
not 105, because
that's the non-majors one
and it doesn't count for us.
Um,
chemistry is another thing that you may
want to consider depending on what your
math level is and where, you know, where
you place, uh, in math at school. But,
um, if,
if it seems like they don't know
which courses you should be in,
make sure you tell them I'm planning
on doing a BS in biology. You know,
if you're still thinking
biology and you know,
that way they put into the right
courses. And if they don't,
if they have questions or if they're
like, they're not sure. And you can say,
well, I talked to Dr. A and he said,
if we have any questions that we
should, we should email him. And then,
you know, I can, I can kind of
advise you on what stuff could take,
because I spent a lot of time redoing
schedules for people that weren't done.
Right. And I don't want you to get
caught up in that, in that scenario.
Okay. Sure. No problem. Anytime.
Talk to me, Landon.
Hi. Um, my name is Landon,
um,
and I like biology just because I've,
I've liked it forever and
my best friend, has turtles.
Okay.
I, um, I want vetinary. Um,
I have, I love reptiles. I have a lizard.
Um, I have a dog and a cat.
She gets her own animal farm
at home. There we go. And, uh,
so you're a junior right now or you're
okay. So you'll be a senior next year,
right?
Have
Okay. Well, I mean, the good
thing is it's kind of like
chickens are good. They're tasty.
I take it.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I mean,
they are tasty, but you know, I mean,
if you want to bring me a
chicken, that that's fine. Um,
we could do something with
it in class, but eggs,
eggs are always good
developmental biology, but, um,
but that's good. So, um, you're,
you're at an interesting stage because
it's like you have more time to kind of
figure out what's the best
fit for you for biology.
And the good thing is once we
get students back on campus,
I'd recommend setting up an admissions
visit coming to campus. I mean,
you already know Rachel,
you already know me. Um,
we can have you sit in on a biology
class. So you kind of, you know,
organismal bio is always fun because
I mean, we used to entertaining, uh,
in class and you can sit around
a class and see, you know,
how this is kind of cool.
We can, we can show you the,
the department show you all the other
stuff about Emory. And then that way,
you know, you can start
making a list. You know,
these are the things that you should
look for at any school that you're
considering going to, you know,
what are your options for, um,
diversity of classes? How
many faculty are there?
Can I do undergraduate
research or, you know,
is that part of the curriculum? And
when can I start so that, you know,
these are the kinds of questions
that, you know, you start thinking,
you're like, okay, well, I know
what I could do if I went to,
and then you're like, Oh, well I could
go to ETSU. And then you're like, well,
okay, you can start here. You can do
this and that, or some places UVA.
So it might be like, yeah, well we
only have like three faculty members,
so you can do some research,
you know? So you want to,
you want to know what can and
can't do in the programs that,
that you're comparing and also
you will get costs. Um, you know,
and what else you can do, you
know, on campus because, um,
what's really cool about this whole region
down here that kind of sold it for me
when I came down. Cause
I was kind of like,
I didn't even know where Emory was when
I saw the job advertisement. Cause I'm,
I'm only used to like Northeastern
Virginia around the DC area.
And, um, I looked at the map and I'm
like, wow, that's like almost Tennessee,
you know, down down, um, you know,
it's almost not Virginia. And,
uh, then I came down and just all of the,
the mountains in, in,
in the Southern Appalachians and the
high altitude communities on those
mountains, a lot of them are our
relics from the last ice age.
So studying the plants and the animals
at those, you know, above 5,000,
5,500 feet in elevation, um, you know,
I'm kind of looking at a lot of stuff.
That's more similar to what is up in
New England and Southern Canada then,
you know, at lower elevations
down here in the Southeastern us.
So it's kind of, um, a lot of really
cool field work and field studies that,
um, that I can do with
students, you know, down here.
And that's the thing it's
kinda like, I didn't, you know,
that's why I have too many.
I have, like I say too many,
but it's never too many.
I have about a dozen research
students at any given point in time.
There are about 60 students
in biology give or take, uh,
we usually graduate about 10 to 20 a year.
So if you kind of look at each class
being between 10 and 20, you know,
you've got somewhere between 40 and 80
people who want to be biology majors,
at least until they have organismal
biology and then they go to psychology or,
or, or, or some other
Last, already a psychology.
I just solidified your knowledge. No,
this close to double majoring.
I know,
I see it as a personal failure on my
part to convince you not, you know,
that you did it double major in
bio, but you are still at Emory.
So that works out fairly well.
If it wasn't the second half of
junior year when I took organismal,
you probably would have
been far more successful.
Yeah. I mean, sometimes you just have
that, you know, it's bad timing, you know,
that was a, a fairly bad year as I
recall. But, um, but in any case,
it's, it's, it's just, um, don't
ask what I mean, ask questions, uh,
when you talk to the admissions
people, uh, you know,
definitely see if you can talk to
somebody in the biology department,
faculty members, you know, if
you want to talk to students,
we could get you in touch
with students. Um, you know,
usually my students, because they're
kind of like, Oh, sure. You know,
we'll talk to people, but that's
the thing it's kind of like if,
if the faculty aren't available to talk
to you from the institution that you're
interested in going to,
if the admissions people don't know a
lot about the department that you're
interested in, uh, these are like all
warning signs that you're kind of like,
Hmm. You know, is that, is that
a program I'm going to be happy?
You know? And I think most of the
bio majors are pretty happy with, um,
you know, their friends in the department
with the faculty and the department.
I mean, we know everybody, you know,
it's not like we don't know who
you are. It's like after, you know,
after I've had you for sometimes
the entire freshman year,
you know, two weeks into the class, I
know who you are and where you're from.
I know what your family does. I know
which dorm you live in. I know, you know,
what your interests are. So it's kind of,
it's more like you feel like you're at
home at Emory because everybody knows
your business, which some people don't
mind that some people are like, well,
I want a little bit more
anonymity. And I'm like, well,
then you should've gone to a school.
That's got more than a thousand people.
And if, if you want it to
be anonymous, you know,
go to UVA where they got like
30,000 people. And then, you know,
nobody's going to know who you are, but
there are problems associated with that.
But any other questions you guys have
before I turn it back over to Rachel?
Cause I've gone like over by three
minutes, but as Rachel will tell you, Dr.
A never shuts up.
It's just the way he is.
Um, and gen bio for the lab component.
Is that just going to be
animal dissections or what
else will be in lab part?
So for gen bio, you're going to
do you do a lot of, I mean, this,
this fall is going to be a little
bit weird because of, you know,
the way the schedule is set up
because of the ongoing pandemic.
But normally you do, um,
projects like team projects,
you do three different projects that are
multi-week projects, uh, for gen bio.
Uh, essentially, you know, you,
you, you know, you design a project,
looking at behavior, using ants
as kind of like your, your,
your first project and you get into the
scientific method of you do things like
that.
You do a biodiversity project where we
take you out to the Bartlett Crowe field
station,
kind of walk you through the area and
you and your group develop some type of
project. That's going to take
you about three weeks to do, um,
out there at the Bartlett Crowe
field station. Um, you know,
maybe you're going to survey a butterfly
diversity in different habitats at the
field station, or, um, looking at, uh,
frog population densities in the different
bodies of water around the station.
Uh, maybe you're doing a plant
survey of different plants, um,
as you go up in elevation from
the wetlands area up to the,
to the drier part. So it's kind
of, we do a project like that.
And then you guys put together
a presentation and you
present it to the rest of
the class, you know, the whole, the
whole group. Then you're going to do, um,
a genetics based, uh, project where, uh,
either with plants or, or animals,
you're going to do tissue
collection, DNA, extractions,
PCR, amplifications,
and so bioinformatics,
phylogeny reconstruction, um, with those.
And then the last project we
usually have you do is kind of one,
it's also tied to genetics where you
actually do kind of a manipulative
experiment with plants,
kind of exposing them to
different degrees of you,
view radiation or alter the environment
that they live in to kind of enhance
mutations in the plants.
But they're, you know,
depending on who's teaching the course,
um, there may be different, you know,
different variations of, of
the projects, but that's,
that's what you do in gen bio.
And then in organismal bio,
which is the course that I teach,
uh, you do a lot of the sections, uh,
of animals, some plant stuff,
a lot of biodiversity, um,
uh, you know,
like looking at the different species
that represent particular groups and
characteristics. Um, you know,
so it's like a basic, you know,
zoology botany type class. And then,
then you get into genetics
later down, you know,
that would be the next course
after that, where, you know, again,
you're doing a lot of
wet work in the lab. Um,
so every course has every course that we
teach in biology. That's, you know, uh,
for-credit real course, they all have
a lab associated with it. So, uh,
in each lab it kind of reinforces what
we talk about in lecture. So it's,
it's much more, it's like,
it's the hands on part of what we
were talking about intellectual. So,
um, it allows us to kind
of cover more, you know,
cause the way, you know, the way I
do organismal bio, it's kind of like,
you know, Rachel will tell you, you just,
you get a lot of stuff between
lecture and lab and um,
you know, I'm trying to
incorporate more projects into it,
but this fall is going to be kinda,
it's going to be weird with, with, uh,
I was going to say post pandemic, but
we're still going to be in pandemic, um,
in the fall. And I'm hoping that
we don't get hit with a second, uh,
second wave, um,
with cold and flu season coming in
in the second half of the semester.
But I figured if I planned for
that to happen, it won't happen.
But if I don't plan it for it, then it's
gonna, it's gonna hit me in the face.
I'm going to be like, gee, we have
to do the entire course online,
you know, this, this semester. So, um,
but in any case, I'll let you guys go,
uh, you have my contact information
through the web, uh, the website,
check it out. Uh, Rachel also
knows how to get ahold of me.
If you have questions, if your parents
have questions, if you have ideas about,
you know, projects that you're
interested in, you know,
we can always kick the can around it and
figure things out. And then, you know,
once you get on the ground at Emory, um,
come find me up in my office.
You know, when you got,
when you got a free five minutes, it's
like, like Rachel said, I'm always there.
So it's kind of, uh,
you can shoot me an email and set up a
time and then we'll meet face to face
and, and, and talk biology. And when
you come to visit campus, uh, when did,
um, ask if you can sit in on a
class, you know, sitting in on, uh,
one of the bio courses and then, uh, and
then come see me and we'll talk more.
Okay. Alright guys, it was nice to meet.
You have a good weekend and
I'll, I'll see you soon enough.
I'm sure. Okay. You're welcome.
I'll see you Rachel, if you need me,
let me know. So you guys,
All right, Landon and Abigail goodbye.
Enjoy the rest of your day and
your weekend. You too. Bye.
