(Dr.) Ken Leonard's Web Pages at GPC
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http://facstaff.gpc.edu/~kleonard

mailto: kenneth.leonard@gpc.edu

Theoretical Ecology
Evolutionary Ecology, Ecological Genetics

I do:

I am an Instructor of Biology in the Department of Life and Earth Sciences at the Dunwoody Campus of Georgia Perimeter College. Since GPC is still supposedly a two-year "junior" college most of the courses we teach are at Freshman and Sophomore level. I teach and have taught:

    BIOL 1402 and Lab: "Cell Biology and Genetics"

    BIOL 1403 and Lab: "Diversity in the Living World"

    BIOL 2107 Lab: "Principles of Biology I"

    ENVS 1401 and Lab: "Environmental Science"

Here is a Quick Link to my Current Semester Courses.

I did:

I received my Ph.D. in Ecology, from the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology, The University of Georgia in Dec. '10. Before that I received a B.S. Geology, from UGA in August '05. Before starting on my present academic track in ecology, evolution and genetics I spent thirty-odd years as an information systems and Internet engineer. 

My doctoral dissertation, Delineating the Ecological Niche to Predict Competitive Outcomes and the Influence of Evolution, dealt with tradeoffs in resource utilization traits of populations evolving to adapt to extremely non-optimum resource supply ratios.  In other words, I was asking, "What really happens to a population’s requirements niche under evolution?" and "What does that mean to our expectation of competitive outcomes?"

I want  to look into:

I do not have a "Research Interests and Objectives" page (yet?) because research is not my principal professional objective.  I am now teaching at this "non-R" institution where, as our programs expand to include 4-year degree(s), I want to involve undergraduates in research and maintain a relationship with a laboratory in an institution such as the Odum School.

My broad research interests span ecology, evolution and genetics–particularly evolutionary punctuations resulting from ecological perturbations.

My first interest is in current events linking environmental changes to biological evolution.

My second interest is certain events in the interval from the Neoproterozoic thru the latest Cambrian.  Geologically speaking, this runs from the consolidation of Rodinia through the snowball-slushball episodes to the isolation of Laurentia, Baltica, and Siberia.  Biologically speaking, this runs from the appearance of the first metazoans thru the evolution and sorting of the stem clades of our present phyla.

My third, back-burner interest is in the stem phylogeny and early evolution of diploblasts, especially Cnidaria.  As time permits I am continuing some field work investigating what may be an evolutionary intermediate between askeletal (sea anemone-like) and calcareous-skeletal (coral-like) cnidaria.

I do not have a "Teaching Philosophy and Interests" page (yet) but my principal professional objective is to teach.

My broad teaching interests include (in alphabetical order) Ecology (alias Environmental Science or Natural Science), Evolution, Genetics, (Integrated or Integrative) Biology, Modeling of Natural Systems and probably several other subjects.

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