Faculty

Renee Baran teaches genetic analysis, developmental biology, and introduction to cell and molecular biochemistry.

Jeff Cannon teaches Organic Chemistry and does research in organic synthesis and catalysis.

Chris Craney teaches physical chemistry I (kinetics) and biochemistry.

Shana Goffredi’s research interests concern beneficial symbiotic partnerships between bacteria and invertebrates.

Dr. McCormack uses museum specimens and genomes to study the evolutionary history of birds, focusing especially on how both ancient landscape changes and more recent human-caused environmental changes affect birds’ distributions, appearance, and DNA. As Director of the Moore Laboratory of Zoology and Curator of its bird and mammal collection, he is a champion of museum collections and their potential for understanding and reversing the biodiversity crisis.

Dr. Molinder teaches biochemistry and molecular biology.

Raul Navarro’s research focus lies in developing new chemical reactions and applying them in the synthesis of biologically active natural products.

Gretchen North investigates how plants cope with physically challenging conditions.

Cheryl Okumura teaches Public Health Biology, Introduction to Cell and Molecular Biology and Microbial Pathogenesis.

Dr. Pollock teaches immunology, molecular biology, introductory biology, and Gender and Science.

In addition to teaching at Occidental, Gary Schindelman is a biological curator for WormBase at Caltech.

Joseph Schulz teaches zoology, biochemistry, and vertebrate physiology. His research focuses on the activity and evolution of venom peptides in fish-hunting cone snails.

Kerry Thompson teaches introduction to cell and molecular biochemistry, stem cell biology, and neurobiology.

Andrew Udit’s research in Chemical Biology focuses on perturbing coagulation with virus nanoparticles, and catalysis using enzymes.