About Sweet Briar's Naturalists

Linda Fink, Professor and Chair of Biology, Coordinator of the Sweet Briar Naturalists
(email: lfink@sbc.edu)

     I came to Sweet Briar in 1990 when Buck Edwards retired. I am an insect ecologist, and I love watching predatory stinkbugs attack caterpillars and showing students how to put wing tags on monarch butterflies. I am currently conducting long-term population studies of monarch butterflies and moths in Virginia (with Lincoln Brower) and experimental studies of tachinid fly parasitoids on saturniid moth caterpillars.

     Along with his former office, I inherited from Buck his topographic maps, tree data, sanctuary budget and position on the college's now-defunct Land Use Committee. The natural resources and land use issues of our campus have led my interests to expand into conservation biology, wildlife management, water chemistry, land use politics, and geographic information systems (GIS).

     Exploring Sweet Briar's acres provides me with literally hundreds of research questions. My students and I work on these as class projects and independent research year round.  Most projects focus on one of three topics: the biology of the monarch butterfly in Virginia; the ecological effects of invasive plants, insects and microorganisms; and the exploration of the biological diversity of the college's landholdings.  

     I teach Animal Behavior, Field Natural History, General Ecology, Evolution, and Introduction to Organisms. I have also taught a First Year Seminar entitled Blue Ridge Environmental Issues, and team-taught an interdisciplinary Nature Journals course and an honors course on Laboratory Investigations in Environmental Science. In Spring 2003, in conjunction with the Nature and Science Writers Series I have organized with Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing Jennifer Brice, Jennifer and I are also teaching an Honors Seminar in which students are reading the works of our three visiting writers.

     When I'm not counting tree rings, feeding parasitic wasps, or downloading satellite data, I live on a remote Nelson County mountainside with two German shepherds, one cat, and my husband, Lincoln Brower.

[My curriculum vitae can be found on the Biology Department's web pages.]

Lincoln P. Brower, Distinguished Service Professor of Zoology Emeritus, University of Florida
and Research Professor of Biology, Sweet Briar College
(email: brower@sbc.edu)

L.P. Brower admiring flowers of Asclepias exaltata

     Lincoln is one of the world's experts on the monarch butterfly. His current research is on their ecological chemistry, overwintering ecology, and migration behavior; he is also working feverishly on monarch conservation in Mexico and the United States. From 1958 to 1980 he was a faculty member in Biology at Amherst College; from 1980 until his retirement in 1997 he was a Professor of Zoology at the University of Florida.

      Lincoln grew up in New Jersey, near what is now the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. At the age of 5, bored with his family's incessant tennis games, he began watching butterflies; he has never stopped. Despite being suspended briefly from high school for spending a fine spring day collecting a rare moth, Feralia jocosa, he obtained a B.A. in Biology from Princeton and a Ph.D. in Zoology from Yale. Early research on speciation in swallowtail butterflies was followed by a series of studies of mimicry and predation, which included and then were overtaken by studies of the charismatic monarch. (Biology students worldwide are familiar with his infamous photograph of the vomiting blue jay.)

     In addition to butterflies, Lincoln's interests include rivers and floodplains, photography and filmmaking, gardening, raising German Shepherds, cooking, and sharing all of these with his wife, Linda Fink. He is enjoying being able to grow real tomatoes again after years of watching in frustration as tomato plants liquefied in Florida's heat.

[Lincoln's curriculum vitae, listing many of his major scientific papers, research grants, honors and awards can be read on the Biology Department's web site, and much of his work is discussed in detail on the web site of MonarchWatch.]

Ernest P. Edwards, Duberg Professor of Ecology Emeritus
(email: edwards@sbc.edu)  

     Buck Edwards taught field biology at Sweet Briar from 1965 until his retirement in 1990. His specialty is ornithology, and his retirement from teaching has not stopped his bird studies. He still bands migratory birds on campus, and a new edition of his Field Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Adjacent Areas has been published recently by The University of Texas Press.

     Buck's knowledge of natural history encompasses much more than birds. He knows Sweet Briar's land intimately, having tromped it since 1927 when his father began teaching physics at the College. Buck remembers stately elm trees in the forests before dutch elm disease arrived in the 1930's; the large apple orchard that stretched down the hillside between Guion and the Green Barn towards the upper lake (which hadn't yet been constructed); and an open hillside with a small cemetery on the western margin of the lower lake. After returning to Sweet Briar to teach, Buck and his late wife Mabel hiked the area frequently in search of birds and wildflowers.

     One change that Buck takes great pride and pleasure in is the expansion of Sweet Briar's sanctuary system. Only the Carry Sanctuary existed when he began teaching. He has been mapping large tracts of our forests for more than 25 years, building a data set that becomes increasingly important over time. Buck persistently combines his knowledge of the forests with advocacy to encourage the college to preserve its natural wealth.

Jeff Janovetz, Assistant Professor of Biology
(email: jjanovetz@sbc.edu)

     Jeff Janovetz joined the Biology Department in 2002 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. Jeff's research expertise is the functional morphology of feeding and locomotion in fish, reptiles and amphibians. He will be teaching a new course in vertebrate diversity, plus comparative vertebrate morphology, comparative animal physiology, and introductory biology.

    Jeff is both a field naturalist and a laboratory biologist, equally comfortable with a minnow trap, dissecting scissors, or a high speed videocamera in his hand. He is learning the hot spots on campus for salamanders and snakes, and developing ideas for student research projects that focus on local vertebrates. One of his spring 2003 students, for example, is studying predation on salamander eggs by the mosquitofish that have invaded Guion Pond.

     Jeff brought a menagerie with him that includes several dozen snakes, African chameleons, legless lizards, and turtles. He has set up display cages and tanks in the biology hall in Guion, and seems to have endless patience for answering questions about his animals and showing students how to handfeed roaches to the chameleons and lizards.

Dan Druckenbrod, Visiting Scientist and Visiting Instructor

     Dan Druckenbrod is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Environmental Science at the University of Virginia. In his dissertation he is developing a simulation model of forest succession in response to disturbance and climatic variation in the Virginia piedmont. His primary field site is The Montpelier Natural Landmark Forest, and he is also using data from two of Sweet Briar's near-old-growth sanctuaries, Carry and Constitution Oaks. Dan was assisted in re-mapping these stands in summer 2000 by Marlena Koper '00 and Dina Orbison '00, who were supported by the Caroline Sharp Sanders Fund of Sweet Briar College. Dan taught a lecture and lab section of introductory biology at Sweet Briar in fall 2001.

 

 

 

 

Paul Gier, former Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, Sweet Briar College
current position: Assistant Professor of Biology, Huntingdon College
Sweet Briar Naturalist ex situ   

     Paul moved to Virginia in 1997, after bouncing from his home state of Idaho to California and then Oklahoma. At Sweet Briar he taught courses in General Biology, Animal Physiology, Anatomy, Conservation Biology, Ecology, and Nature Writing. Since his chief hobbies include natural history and nature photography, Paul spent a good deal of time exploring Sweet Briar's landscape, searching for wildflowers, birdwatching, and hunting for reptiles and amphibians (his formal training is in herpetology). Also, he and his wife Karla both collect insects -- mostly beetles, moths and butterflies.

     Paul's research interests are in the fields of animal ecology and behavior. For his dissertation, he spent months camping in deserts and stationed in the tropics to record the mating behavior of iguanid lizards. At Sweet Briar, he advised students working on a variety of projects in field ecology and environmental physiology. Paul's students studied tadpoles, salamander egg development, flower symmetry, spider ecology, and the thermal habitats provided by trees.

     Paul and Karla moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where Paul is Assistant Professor of Biology at Huntingdon College. Because Paul left with us dozens of scanned images of Sweet Briar's fauna and flora to be incorporated throughout the web site, and because we will continue to call on him to identify the herpetofauna, we have designated Paul as a Sweet Briar Naturalist ex situ.

     Paul's email address is: pgier@huntingdon.edu

 

---

 

 

Wendy McIntyre, Summer 2000 Naturalist-in-Residence

 

     Wendy McIntyre,who completed her Ph.D. in Environmental Science at the University of Virginia in spring 2001, was our first Naturalist-in-Residence. Wendy conducted breeding bird surveys during June 2000, assisted by Sweet Briar student Megan Ogilvie.

     Wendy's dissertation was entitled "Quantification of Habitat Variables Influencing Breeding Habitat Selection and Use by Neotropical Migrant Birds in Albemarle County Virginia."  In 2000-01 Wendy worked as an adjunct professor at Mary Baldwin College, teaching Environmental Issues and Australian Ecology. Wendy has a Master of Forestry degree from Duke University and a BA in Ecology from Colorado College. Wendy has worked as a park naturalist, a forester, and director of a UVA field research site; and she ran her own landscaping business in Charlottesville, Virginia.

      In Fall 2001 Wendy joined the faculty in the environmental studies program at the University of Redlands in California.

 

 

---

	About Sweet Briar's student naturalists
	Return to Natural History Home Page

URL: //nature.sbc.edu/aboutnaturalists.html        email: naturalist@sbc.edu

This site is maintained by Professor Linda S. Fink  (434) 381-6436
Department of Biology
Sweet Briar College, Sweet Briar VA 24595
Last updated: 5 March 2003
Sweet Briar College main site