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About Darwin Day at UTK

Darwin Day in Knoxville, Tennessee is a volunteer-run event dedicated to informing the public about evolution and its importance as a unifying concept in all of biology. Our goal is to disseminate factual information, in the context of a non-confrontational and rational discussion based on empirical evidence without pre-conceived ideological agendas or uncritical faith in the opinions of scientists, politicians, or clerics. In a state with past and recent legislative efforts to introduce faith-based ideologies into the science classrooms of public schools, these efforts are particularly important.

We sponsored the first Darwin Day event on February 12th of 1997, the 188th birthday of Charles Robert Darwin. Since this first Darwin Day, the annual celebration has grown to include an annual keynote speaker, a teacher's workshop, and other events.

Please browse our site to learn more.

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Board of Directors

• President: Rachel Goodman
  Ph.D. Student, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, UT Knoxville
  Website: http://web.utk.edu/~rgoodma3/research.html
  Email: rgoodma3<at>utk<dot>edu
  - Rachel Goodman completed a B.A. in Biology at Columbia University, and a M.Sc. in her current department at UT. She has been involved in Darwin Day since 2003, and is involved in other educational efforts in biology, conservation, and herpetology. Research interests include evolutionary biology, phenotypic plasticity, behavioral ecology, conservation biology, and herpetology. Past projects include: behavioral ecology and conservation of a rare iguana, effects of tail autotomy on locomotion and growth of lizards, and effects of developmental temperature on thermoregulation in juvenile lizards. Rachel's dissertation research explores geographic variation in cell size, growth rates, and body size, and temperature-induced plasticity of these traits in the green anole, Anolis carolinensis.

• Vice President: Matt Valente
  Ph.D. Student, Department of Geography, UT Knoxville
  Website: http://web.utk.edu/~mvalente/
  Email: mvalente<at>utk<dot>edu
  - Matthew Valente completed a M.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UT, and entered the Ph.D. program in the Department of Geography in the Fall of 2008.  Matthew holds a B.S. in Botany from Auburn University, and has broad research interests in plant evolution, population genetics, conservation, paleoecology, and climate history.  For his master's thesis, Matthew investigated the evolutionary history and conservation genetics of the rare basal angiosperm, Schisandra glabra in the southeastern US and Mexico.  

• Secretary: M. Steven Furches
  Ph.D. Student, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, UT Knoxville
  Website: http://furches.googlepages.com
  Email:  furches<at>gmail<dot>com
  - I am interested in many aspects of plant evolution, population genetics, and conservation. I am particularly interested in polyploid origin, hybridization, and evolution. For my M.S. project at the University of South Dakota I studied the population genetics of an extremely rare endemic - Lithophragma maximum. Now in my first year of Ph.D. work at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville, I am studying the phylogenetics of and hybridization in the genus Sarracenia (Sarraceniaceae), the North American Pitcher Plants.

• Treasurer: Graham Reynolds
  Ph.D. Student, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, UT Knoxville

• Public Relations: Lara Souza
  Ph.D. Student, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, UT Knoxville
  Website: http://web.utk.edu/~lsouza
  Email: lara<at>utk<dot>edu
  - My research focuses on understanding species-specific mechanisms, in particular physiological processses, that can be important in influencing plant community structure, i.e. plant composition. I am maily interested in how carbon aquisition and water loss at the leaf-level play a role in plant species productivity and overall individual success in a community setting and ultimately how space and time feedback into such processes.