About

This is a web notebook maintained by me, Chris Wolverton, a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University. The purpose of this site is to publish observations on science, technology, and higher education from the standpoint of a biologist–teacher and technophile. I teach plant physiology, cell biology, and genetics, and do research on plant responses to stimuli like gravity and light. I have been blogging in some form or another since 2004 when I started the site on a server in my lab. I moved it to a hosted WordPress blog (http://scwolver.wordpress.com), and now I’m back to my own domain.

Professional Background

I started working with plants as a high school student at Speidel’s Garden Center in Milford, OH, USA, and became hooked on plant propagation and growth. I attended Miami University in Oxford, OH, USA and majored in Botany, graduating in 1995. While there I had the chance to work in Jerry McClure’s lab, studying plant secondary compounds that protect plants from UV radiation. He found money to send me to the American Society of Plant Physiologists meeting that summer in Portland, OR, USA, and I was hooked.

After my Bachelor’s degree, I went directly to graduate school, working the Mike Evans’ lab at Ohio State. I earned a Ph.D. in Plant Biology from OSU in 2001. My dissertation was entitled “The Role of the Distal Elongation Zone in the Response of Roots to Gravity.” To type that title, I had to open my dissertation for the first time since placing it on the shelf in 2002. Its topics, however, have remained my area of research activity, and I particularly enjoy the opportunity to work with undergraduates in my lab here at OWU.

It should go without saying, but just in case, the views expressed here on this site are mine and mine alone (or those of the commenter), and not those of my employer.