Nov 19, 2025
Assistant Professor of Biology Caroline Dong shares information her life, work, and time at Grinnell.
Biology News
Oct 14, 2025
Maria Pinto was recently a guest of the English department’s Writers@Grinnell program and Grinnell’s first environmental writer-in-residence at CERA. She was also the first visitor to stay in the newly renovated CERA residence.
Sep 15, 2025
Senior Lecturer in Biology Liz Queathem led a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) to develop a virtual map of campus trees. She worked with several students who remapped every tree on campus.
Aug 28, 2025
For Josh Emrys Payong, a Mentored Advanced Project (MAP) in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with Associate Professor of Biology Idelle Cooper ’01 was the perfect way to satisfy his urge to conduct more field research.
Aug 25, 2025
This summer, Associate Professor of Biology Idelle Cooper ’01 took four students and her 11-month-old son, Wendell, to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for a four-week field research experience to study jewelwing damselflies.
Jul 24, 2025
Alex Reich ’11 works to raise awareness and educate people about the linked issues of climate change and the global food system.
Jul 10, 2025
Four Grinnell students worked at CERA during summer 2025, getting hands-on experience ranging from identifying native prairie plants and collecting their seeds to driving on gravel roads.
Jun 18, 2025
Student-faculty research at Grinnell is nothing new. The College has been on the cutting edge of scientific inquiry since its earliest days.
Apr 20, 2025
On Earth Day 2025, the Center for Prairie Studies sponsored an event at Arbor Lake for Grinnellians who wanted to learn about what’s in Iowa’s rivers and streams.
Mar 14, 2025
Garcia, from St. Paul, MN, is among 37 students selected nationwide from 155 finalists from 41 partner schools to receive the $40,000 fellowship stipend. The program offers “college graduates of unusual promise a year of purposeful, independent exploration and international travel to enhance their capacity for resourcefulness, imagination, openness, and leadership and to foster their humane and effective participation in the world community.”
Biology Stories
Where the sciences are headed with research is exactly what’s embedded into classes at Grinnell. It starts from the very beginning with Intro to Biology, and continues as two or three authentic research projects for every class after that.
Vince Eckhart, Waldo S. Walker Professor of Biology
The best work that we can do for the environment, for nature and wildlife, and for each other, is get involved with the local communities because that is where the impact of our work can be seen.
It’s a physician’s role to look beyond the analytics and think ‘What does this feel like to the patient and family? What does a longer wait time mean for future care?’
If you have taken a class with Professor Lafontant, you may have picked up on a sense of what he calls wonderment. Wonderment is a word that reflects his belief that the whole world of science is fascinating.
My work allows me to better see the connection between the research realm and the more human part of the world. In my current position, I am able to work towards making science more relevant for policy and decision making, and I find those goals to be a lot more tangible.
The experience of learning how to think scientifically can help develop a person's critical thinking skills. Scientific inquiry helps people differentiate between things that are real and things that are not real.
I really appreciate that I went to school in a time when I learned to relate to the patient, professionally, socially, and personally.
You never know where your life is going to take you. So be open to possibilities that might open up.
Conservation work needs individuals who can foster a mindset of interconnectedness.
What is One Health? It’s “recognizing the interconnected relationships between human, animal, and environmental health and working together across those disciplines and sectors," says Griffith.
Our social environment affects how we study other organisms. We often use the animal world as justification or examples for how humans should be, which is dangerous.