About
Meet Our Staff
Jeff Doyle
I'm the Principal Investigator of the grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute that has funded CIBT and the Cornell Research Scholars undergraduate programs for 16 years. My role in CIBT is one of general oversight, and also to provide a college faculty perspective on programs. Laurel Southard (see below) and I are some form of weird symbiosis, having worked together since the late 1990's prior to our current roles in CIBT/Hughes.
I wear several hats at Cornell. I've been here since 1984, when I joined the faculty of what was then the L. H. Bailey Hortorium as an assistant professor. Everything has evolved (I'd like to say intelligently, but that might be stretching a pun and a point) since then. The Hortorium is now part of the Department of Plant Biology. I've been a full professor for quite awhile. And my science has evolved from plant molecular systematics to plant comparative genomics. I have a lab with a technician (my wife, Jane--we married in 1980 and she's been running our lab since we came to Cornell), postdocs (currently two), grad students (five), and undergraduates (one, at the moment). My research focuses on such topics as polyploidy (genome duplication) and the evolution of nodulation in legumes.
I was born in Washington, D.C., moved to Uruguay when I was less than a year old, back to northern Virginia three years later, to Venezuela when I was 12, then back to northern Virginia for high school. I got a B.A. in biology at William & Mary, my masters and Ph.D. in plant systematics at Indiana University, did three years of a plant molecular biology postdoc at Washington University in St. Louis before coming to Cornell. At heart I'm a naturalist--in fact I worked for the National Park Service (roads and trails crew and eventually a ranger-naturalist, at Shenandoah, National Capital Parks, and Olympic) during my college summers. I've been a birder all my life, wanted to be a herpetologist, but ended up as a botanist. Got into science because of the field work, but ended up working with DNA. I love playing guitar, gardening, and rooting for Cornell hockey.
Laurel Southard
I wear two hats at Cornell University. As the Director of Undergraduate Research for Cornell I am responsible for helping promote undergraduate research in all of the colleges at Cornell. In this position I interact with faculty, students and administrators in a wide variety of disciplines. More importantly, I direct the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers. I am very proud of this effort, which has been funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1990. It was the brainchild of Rita Calvo and Peter Bruns and many years later still provides valuable training to K-12 teachers of science. We offer summer and academic workshops for teachers and maintain an extensive equipment library that we ship to school free of charge (thanks to funding from New York State!).
I grew up in the mountains overlooking Santa Fe, New Mexico surrounded by my dogs, cats, horses and lizards. It was obvious from early times that I was destined for science- at the age of 8 I poured a foaming reaction of AgCl into my bathroom sink leaving a stain that plagued my mother for 30 years! My parents were avid gardeners and I always assumed that I would someday work with plants. I attended Hastings College and the University of New Mexico, where I pursued my dual interests of art and biology. During my undergraduate years my life was changed dramatically in the time I spent employed by Dr. Alexander Kisch of the UNM Medical School. He transformed me from a budding plant pathologist into a passionate follower of infectious disease. Our epidemiological work gave me lots of stories that I still love to tell! I moved to Ithaca in 1977 after working on my master's degree in Parasitology at Tulane University. I worked in several labs at the veterinary college before joining Dr. Volker Vogt's retrovirus lab in 1981 where I worked on virus particle formation in retroviruses. After working for over 30 years at the lab bench I left lab work to direct the Cornell University Hughes Undergraduate Scholars Program. I directed that summer research program, along with the Cornell Leadership Alliance program until the Fall of 2010 when I moved to the Provost's office to create a new office for undergraduate research. In my spare time I take care of an old farmhouse and 3 horses, 2 goats, 5 dogs and 8 cats. I also love the theatre and am thrilled to be a member of the Advisory Board of the Hangar Theatre.
Mike Darwin Yerky
As CIBT's "Road Warrior," the Outreach Coordinator travels literally thousands of miles per year to bring CIBT's more sophisticated labs such as DNA Profiling or Protein Gel electrophoresis to your classroom. From Buffalo to Albany, from Plattsburgh to NYC - no town is too big or too small to get a visit from me.
I received my Ph.D. in physical anthropology from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. My academic career to date has focused on research with captive monkeys and apes investigating hormones and behavior and their interrelationship. One of my main concerns has always been conservation of these amazing animals - to this end my goal is to educate the public about these issues and try to instill some of my fascination for these species in students. If you are interested in this and related topics, I can only recommend my interactive "Primates!" presentation/lecture. It comes with a worksheet with 10 questions for the students to answer as we go through the presentation; an answer key for the teacher is also available in case you want them to turn in the worksheets for grades. The presentation deals with primate systematics, genetics, behavior, evolution and of course some of my research with non-human primates and will likely be compelling for any high school student interested in animal sciences.
Other projects of mine include the revised Tales from the Crypt lab and a behavior lab. "Measuring Behavior" is a thorough introduction into the theory and methodology of behavioral observations of animals. It comes on a CD-ROM with plenty of video sequences for practicing the techniques. It is geared towards AP Bio (but can be adapted to lower levels as well) and prepares and encourages the students to design their own little animal behavior projects.
See you soon for a visit,
Mike D. Yerky, Ph.D.
Florianna Blanton
Florianna Blanton is a native of Costa Rica, where she grew up and earned her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Costa Rica. Her studies involved field and research trips to the many diverse biological zones throughout the country. After graduating, she taught biology at the secondary school level for two years.
After moving to the United States, she and her husband operated a nature tour company that organized educational tours for many leading US universities, museums, and zoological societies. She developed programs for Costa Rica, Belize, Italy and other areas. She has traveled extensively throughout Europe, East Africa, and Central and South America.
Florianna obtained her New York State Teaching Certification through Wells College in Aurora, NY and taught Biology at Ithaca High School for three years before coming to Cornell University as Outreach Coordinator and to work on lab development with CIBT. She is the CIBT staff member to contact for information on the Equipment Lending Library and CIBT's many teacher workshops at the Cornell Campus.
Florianna loves dancing, playing tennis, walking her dogs, cooking for family and friends and reading.
Ginny Mindel
I’m the new person on the team here at CIBT, I’ve been here since May 2011. I’m the CIBT Administrative Assistant. I’ve been an Administrative Assistant for 20 years and love what I do.
I was born in Lewiston Maine and came to New York when I was a twelve. I went to and graduated from Trumansburg High School.
I now live in Ithaca and have been here for fifteen years. Between my second husband and I we have five children and nine grandchildren. I love reading, dancing and riding on my motorcycle (weather permitting here in Ithaca) with my husband by my side on his bike.
Xiaoai Chen
I grew up in a small town in the southeast of China. As a daughter of two illiterate peasant parents, I had no taste of science until I started science classes in middle school. But once I was introduced to the fascinating world of Chemistry, Physics, and Biology, I excelled in all these subjects and I decided I wanted to become a scientist. I chose Biology when I entered Peking University (China) because I believe that Biology is the most challenging science since the human body is the most complicated system on earth and biological research will help us to discover the secret of life. Bearing that in mind, I went straightforward to get my BS in Biology at Peking University and an MS in Genetics at Fudan University (China) and continued to pursue my PhD at Fudan. I came to the United States for the first time to do my PhD thesis research at Yale University in a joint program between Fudan and Yale University. After that I returned to Fudan where I received my PhD degree. Then I worked in different labs, first at Fudan, later at Weill Cornell Medical College. For more than ten years, I have worked on very diverse research projects, including genetically engineering tobacco so the tobacco leaves can produce an enzyme called amylase, genetic modification of plant hoppers so they would not transmit viral pathogens to rice, and the molecular mechanisms underlying skin cancer.
When I became the Science Outreach Director at Weill Cornell Graduate School (located in Manhattan) in 2006, I was glad that I had been equipped with a wealth of knowledge and a rich research experience that I could use to help youth in science learning. While I have developed some independent programs in recent years, my office serves as CIBT’s satellite office in New York City (NYC). My role at CIBT is to help CIBT at Ithaca to set up professional training workshops in NYC for NYC teachers and to bring equipment and graduate students to classrooms in NYC area. I also run a Summer Academy in Molecular Biology for high school seniors here at Weill Cornell. I work closely with local teachers to develop science activities that will promote science learning for secondary school students. Therefore, NYC teachers are more than welcome to contact me to expand students’ science learning experience.
