The Department of Zoology welcomes two new tenure-track faculty starting fall 2012: Dr. Mary Towner and Dr. Jennifer Shaw.

Mary Towner has been teaching and doing research in the Department of Zoology since Fall 2008. She is a human behavioral ecologist with a Ph.D. in Animal Behavior from UC Davis and a B.A. in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution from UC San Diego. Her research interests include dispersal and parental investment, demography, and cultural evolution, with a focus on quantitative methods and modeling.

Jennifer H. Shaw earned her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2000 from the University of Montana. For the past 3 years Jennifer has been a Research Associate at the OSU Center for Veterinary Health Sciences where she studied hydrogen peroxide as a signaling molecule from the endothelium to the underlying smooth muscle and its effect on gene & protein expression of arteriogenic factors. She lectured in Veterinary Physiology and Veterinary Pharmacology. Jennifer has served as adjunct faculty in Zoology since 2005 teaching Mammalian Physiology. She will continue her research on the effect of oxidative stress on intercellular communication within the coronary vessel wall and would also like to develop a Pharmacology course for pre-professional and graduate students.