Welcome to my course! Courses taken over the Internet tend to be rather impersonal. To try and rectify this to some extent, I offer you here a brief history of my life, achievements and interests. As a start, click here to see a picture of me taken a few years ago in my office at WSU .
I was born in 1937 of Cornish parents in what is now called Tanzania, West Africa. The first school I attended was in Cape Town, South Africa. At the end of World War II I returned with my parents to Cornwall, England, where I was greatly influenced by my biology teacher at the Cornwall Technical College. In 1954 I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship from the County of Cornwall to attend London University where, in 1959, I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Zoology with a special in Entomology. Coming from an adventuring family, and desiring to see more of the world, I then accepted a research assistantship in the Entomology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. There I studied the population dynamics of an important forest insect, the western pine beetle, and eventually earned my Master of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Entomology under the tutelage of Professor Ronald Stark. Upon completion of my education in 1964, I accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Entomology and Forestry and Range Management at Washington State University, where I have been ever since. Now a Professor of Entomology and Natural Resource Sciences, I continue my studies on the population dynamics of forest insects, but also have research interests in conifer defense systems, steelhead and salmon population dynamics, and theoretical ecology. I have written 4 books, published more than 130 scientific papers, and have developed computer programs for analyzing population data. I teach the courses Introduction to Forest Insects, Forest Pest Management, Population Theory, Population Analysis and Predator-Prey Dynamics, all of which can be taken over the Internet. My hobbies include fly fishing, particularly for steelhead trout, skiing, scuba diving and driving and caring for my classic 1970 e-type Jaguar. For more information on my academic career, check out my academic homepage.
WELCOME again, and I hope you enjoy this course. More important, I hope you learn something from it, particularly something about the world we live in and what makes it tick.
