Craig S. Hood

Dr. Hood joined the Department of Biological Sciences in 1986 and was one of the founding faculty of the Environmental Studies Minor Program in 1989. He served as Director of the Environment Program from 2014-2019 and resumed his position in 2022. His expertise is in concepts of evolution, ecology, and the relationship between form and function in plants and animals and his research focuses on ecological and evolutionary patterns and processes in diverse groups of organisms and ecosystems. Recent work and ongoing studies examine ecology and conservation biology of mammals (especially bats); spatial ecology and evolution of wetland plants; and geographic variation and sexual dimorphism in vertebrates. Evolutionary studies include functional morphology and morphometrics using video-based image analysis and multivariate statistics. His educational focus is on students learning major concepts. To do so, students must master fundamental objective knowledge in biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics as well as the skills to carry-out their own research. It is clear that we are now in the midst of the Information Age, and it is therefore imperative that students learn to learn using modern information technologies. With this said, his attitude is that these technologies are tools and that people still count -- learning begins and ends with people.