About the Authors
Dmitry Y. Brogun is a molecular evolutionary biologist. He holds an M.A. in ethology from Brooklyn College, M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Genetics from the Graduate Center (CUNY). He received his graduate research training from Michigan State University, doctoral and post-doctoral research training from CUNY and Rockefeller University. His research interests include molecular evolutionary biology and algology, with emphasis on genes and biochemical pathways leading to the secondary metabolite production in algae. Prof. Brogun received an NSF grant allowing him to implement and pilot an online course where students did pathogen surveillance in public metagenomic datasets. This was done collaboratively, involving individuals from CUNY, SDSU, NIH, NLM, and NCBI. Above all, Dr. Brogun has been educating students in general biology, microbiology, anatomy, and physiology at CUNY since 2007. At Kingsborough Community College, he has served as a Metagenomics Discovery Program (MDC) PI and mentors students in the CUNY Research Scholars Program (CRSP).
Azure N. Faucette received her Ph.D. in the physiology of reproduction from Texas A&M University, College Station. Before becoming a Kingsborough Community College professor, she did post-doctoral research at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Wayne State University and Perinatology Research Branch, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institutes of Health. Under the guidance of Dr. Kang Chen, she investigated the regulation and function of humoral immunity and B cells in pregnancy and the pathogenesis of preterm birth, which has largely remained a puzzle in reproductive biology for a long time. During that time, Dr. Faucette received the MARC/SRC Travel Award to attend an Advance Course in Immunology; in addition, she received the William Townsend Porter Scholarship and Burroughs Wellome Fund Scholarship to attend the Frontiers of Reproduction Course at the Marine Biology Laboratory in Woodhole, MA. At Kingsborough Community College, she has served as a mentor for both CUNY Research Scholars Program (CRSP), Bridges/CSTEP (Bridge to the Bachelor’s Program at Medgar Evers College/ Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program).
Professor Kristin Polizzotto is a professor of Biological Sciences at Kingsborough Community College, City University of New York. Since coming to Kingsborough in 2004, she has taught a variety of courses, including general biology, marine biology, and invertebrate biology. She has also mentored many student research projects in marine ecology and marine paleobiology. Prof. Polizzotto holds a BS in Zoology from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Zoology from Cornell University. Her research interests include evolutionary biology and paleobiology, with emphasis on morphological changes in living and extinct marine mollusks. Prof. Polizzotto enjoys the challenge of developing activities and resources that engage students and help them to understand the organization and functioning of the biological world for themselves. She hopes that these activities will also help students to hone their skills in scientific inquiry, thus strengthening their foundation for a lifetime of continual discovery.
Farshad Tamari is a molecular geneticist. He received his Masters (M.Sc.), and Ph.D. from the Department of Biology at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He completed a three-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Human Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, and joined the Department of Biological Sciences at Kingsborough Community College in 2009. Currently, Tamari’s research revolves around technical aspects of DNA extraction and its optimization in plants. He also has an interest in pedagogical studies to determine best classroom/lab practices.
