CIBT Staff

Jeff Doyle I’m the Principal Investigator of the grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute that has funded CIBT and the Cornell Research Scholars undergraduate programs for 16 years.  I’m relatively new to the job, though, having taken over in 2004.  My role in CIBT is one of general oversight, and also to provide a college faculty perspective on programs.  Laurel Southard (see below) and I are some form of weird symbiosis, having worked together since the late 1990’s prior to our current roles in CIBT/Hughes.

I wear several hats at Cornell.  I’ve been here since 1984, when I joined the faculty of what was then the L. H. Bailey Hortorium as an assistant professor.  Everything has evolved (I’d like to say intelligently, but that might be stretching a pun and a point) since then.  The Hortorium is now part of the Department of Plant Biology.  I’ve been a full professor for quite awhile.  And my science has evolved from plant molecular systematics to plant comparative genomics.  I have a lab with a technician (my wife, Jane--we married in 1980 and she’s been running our lab since we came to Cornell), postdocs (currently two), grad students (five), and undergraduates (one, at the moment).  My research focuses on such topics as polyploidy (genome duplication) and the evolution of nodulation in legumes.  I’m also officially the Hays & James M. Clark Director of Undergraduate Biology, which means that I direct the ca. 1400 student biology major.  It is through being director that I became head of the Hughes program, but that is too long a story to tell here.  Suffice it to say that I’ve learned a lot about outreach since then, and have become very enthusiastic our teacher programs.

I was born in Washington, D.C., moved to Uruguay when I was less than a year old, back to northern Virginia three years later, to Venezuela when I was 12, then back to northern Virginia for high school.  I got a B.A. in biology at William & Mary, my masters and Ph.D. in plant systematics at Indiana University, did three years of a plant molecular biology postdoc at Washington University in St. Louis before coming to Cornell.  At heart I’m a naturalist--in fact I worked for the National Park Service (roads and trails crew and eventually a ranger-naturalist, at Shenandoah, National Capital Parks, and Olympic) during my college summers.  I’ve been a birder all my life, wanted to be a herpetologist, but ended up as a botanist.  Got into science because of the field work, but ended up working with DNA.  I love playing guitar, gardening, and rooting for Cornell hockey.

Laurel Southard I am the Director all of Cornell programs funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  I grew up in the mountains overlooking Santa Fe, New Mexico surrounded by my dogs, cats, horses and lizards.  It was obvious from early times that I was destined for science- at the age of 8 I poured a foaming reaction of AgCl into my bathroom sink leaving a stain that plagued my mother for 30 years!  I attended Hastings College and the University of New Mexico, where I pursued my dual interests of art and biology.  During my undergraduate years my life was changed by working with Dr. Alexander Kisch of the UNM Medical School.  He transformed me from a budding plant pathologist into a molecular virologist and gave me lots of stories that I still love to tell!  I moved to Ithaca in 1977 after working on my master’s degree in Parasitology at Tulane University.  I worked in several labs at the veterinary college before joining Dr. Volker Vogt’s retrovirus lab in 1981 where I worked on virus particle formation in retroviruses.  After working for over 30 years at the lab bench I left lab work to direct the Cornell University Hughes Undergraduate Scholars Program.  I am currently the Director of Undergraduate Research and Outreach in Biology.  My major role is to serve as a liaison for undergraduates seeking research positions and faculty seeking undergraduate researchers.  In addition to that my office is responsible for the Cornell Hughes Undergraduate Research Program, the Biology Honors Program, the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers and the Biology Ambassadors.  In my spare time I take care of an old farmhouse and 3 horses, 2 goats, 3 dogs and 8 cats.  I also love the theatre and am thrilled to be a member of the Advisory Board of the Hangar Theatre.

I am so happy to finally be able to direct both HHMI programs.  For years I have believed that our HHMI programs would benefit from being more integrated.  Now I race from meeting to meeting and from office to office- but life is great!

Mike Darwin Yerky

As CIBT’s "Road Warrior," the Outreach Coordinator travels literally thousands of miles per year to bring CIBT’s more sophisticated labs such as DNA Profiling or Protein Gelelectrophoresis to your classroom.  From Buffalo to Albany, from Plattsburgh to NYC - no town is too big or too small to get a visit from me.

I received my Ph.D. in physical anthropology from the University of Zurich, Switzerland.  My academic career to date has focused on research with captive monkeys and apes investigating hormones and behavior and their interrelationship.  One of my main concerns has always been conservation of these amazing animals - to this end my goal is to educate the public about these issues and try to instill some of my fascination for these species in students.  If you are interested in this and related topics, I can only recommend my interactive "Primates!" presentation/lecture.  It comes with a worksheet with 10 questions for the students to answer as we go through the presentation; an answer key for the teacher is also available in case you want them to turn in the worksheets for grades.  The presentation deals with primate systematics, genetics, behavior, evolution and of course some of my research with non-human primates and will likely be compelling for any high school student interested in animal sciences.

Other projects of mine include the revised Tales from the Crypt lab and a behavior lab.  "Measuring Behavior" is a thorough introduction into the theory and methodology of behavioral observations of animals.  It comes on a CD-ROM with plenty of video sequences for practicing the techniques.  It is geared towards AP Bio (but can be adapted to lower levels as well) and prepares and encourages the students to design their own little animal behavior projects.

See you soon for a visit,

Mike D. Yerky, Ph.D.