Randy Fuller, Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies, has been named the Gretchen Hoadley Burke ’81 Endowed Chair in Regional Studies, for one year, beginning July 1, 2015. Dr. Fuller has a PhD from the University of Toronto, and degrees from North Texas State University and Michigan State University. He teaches freshwater ecology, invertebrate zoology and environmental science at Colgate, and leads students out in the field in many of his courses to demonstrate how to quantify animal and plant communities.
As Burke Chair, Fuller is teaching an FSEM course on acid rain in the Adirondack Mountains and is giving four talks as part of the Environmental Studies Brown Bag series on campus. He organized a special session entitled: “Acid Deposition: 25 Years After The Clean Air Act Amendments” at the Society for Freshwater Science Meetings in Milwaukee, WI in May of 2015, and presented a paper entitled “Impacts of lime amendments on leaf decomposition and nutrient uptake dynamics in acid-stressed Adirondack Mountain streams” at the Acid Rain 2015 International Meetings held in Rochester, NY in October 2015.
This summer, two Colgate students worked with Fuller on leaf decomposition and nutrient uptake studies in Adirondack Mountain streams, and Fuller will be going to Sacramento, CA in May 2016 to attend the Society for Freshwater Science meetings and to present this research.