William Dwight Whitney Professor of Biology, Emerita
You study how zebra finches learn to sing. As recognized by a MacArthur “genius grant,” the findings have much to teach us.
Over four decades, students have flocked to your famously challenging but fascinating courses, devouring your ideas about how species encode, transmit and expand knowledge, in processes comparable to genetic evolution.
This spring, the biology department hosted a symposium with six influential scientists who honored you as their teacher and mentor. They recalled your particular talent for bringing your subject to life, mimicking birdcalls in classes and meetings or deftly demonstrating the mating dances of birds and spiders.
This pleasure you take in pedagogy is married to a deep commitment to your work and our community. Your service on campus committees is prolific. Your advocacy for faculty has yielded progress on issues from the role of athletics to pay equality to the idea of a spontaneous Mountain Day. Your support for students facing intellectual and personal challenges is unswerving (perhaps a reflection of your skill in orienteering). And your ability to exploit loopholes in the rules for the biology department’s annual mini-golf tournament is the stuff of legend.
It is not just for the birds: We have all learned something from you. And it is now our pleasure to sing your praises.
I hereby declare you the William Dwight Whitney Professor of Biology, Emerita, entitled to all the rights, honors and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 8, 2025