• Professor Bosacker
• Professor Davidson
• Professors Wolff

Professor Bosacker's Research Group

For over 40 years, a team of researchers has studied the wild baboons of Gombe National Park, Tanzania. This compiled data set on hundreds of individual baboons has been used to address a vast array of research questions, including how males and females acquire and maintain social rank, the significance of social relationships for female baboons, and the evolutionary history of menopause. We will use this data set, including original documents from the field, as our primary resource in order to address research questions centering on the biology and behavior of baboons. Students in this research group will be immersed in primate biology, gain first-hand experience in the lesser-known facets of field biology, and probably pick up some Swahili along the way. Students will learn how to ask relevant research questions, address these questions using this complex data set, and then interpret and present the results of their research.

The following is a sample of potential research topics:

1. Sisters and girlfriends: the evolutionary significance of female social support
2. Patterns of male transfer behavior: Why do some males roam while others stay put?
3. The mystery of past demographic crises: What are the causes and significance of historic periods of high mortality and miscarriage?
4. Inter-troop competition: What can we learn about competition for resources between social groups?
5. Rank anomalies: How common are female “social jumpers” and what underlies their successes?
6. Troop splits:
   1. What can home range data reveal about the causes and consequences of troop splits?
   2. How do social dynamics influence patterns of troop splits?
7. Social rank and adolescent baboons:
   1. How does rank affect the experiences of female baboons during adolescence?
   2. Why do daughters of low-ranking baboons experience greater physiological costs during adolescence but not during adulthood?
   3. Can injury data help explain why daughters of high-ranking females mature faster

Professor Davidson’s Research Group

The Northfield area offers a wide variety of research opportunities to study the local geology, hydrology, environmental issues, and land use. Davidson’s research group will spend the first three days or so on field trips learning the local geology, visiting potential research sites, and discussing possible projects. We will then break into small groups (typically groups of three) determined by your research interests, and develop a research plan for the rest of the program. Here are a few potential research projects that could be accomplished in the Northfield area:

1. Precipitation and discharge in the Cannon River watershed.
2. The effects of land use on water quality in the Spring Creek watershed.
3. Land use history in the Cannon River Wilderness Park: Using seismic surveys to determine the volume of recent soil deposits.
4. Mapping pre-glacial channels of the Cannon River using seismic surveys.
5. Effect of the Lyman lakes on water chemistry and suspended load in Spring Creek.
6. Effect of debris dams on velocity and bed load in Spring Creek.
7. Water chemistry, spring formation, and Fe-oxidizing bacteria in the Cannon River Wilderness Park.
8. Fossil assemblages and paleoenvironment in Ordovician sedimentary rocks of southeastern Minnesota.
9. Detrital mineral assemblages in lower Paleozoic clastic rocks of southeastern Minnesota.
10. Gravity and magnetic surveys across the mid-continent rift.

Professors Wolff's Research Group

The Department of Biology at Carleton offers a wide variety of research opportunities to study the nervous system and its development. Students in our research groups will spend their time getting acquainted with fundamental neuroscience concepts, developing their expertise in experimental design, familiarizing themselves with modern instrumentation, collecting and analyzing data, and refining their capacity to integrate these data into coherent hypothesis and theories.

The following is a sample of potential research projects:

1. The cellular basis of chemotaxis in C. elegans.
2. The molecular biology of motorneuron development.
3. The pharmacology of autonomic synapses.
4. RNAi and its role in the development of the nervous system.
5. The cellular basis of pharyngeal pumping in C. elegans.
6. The establishment of body axes in the sea urchin.
7. In vitro development of cellular excitability and contractility in the heart.
8. Electrical excitability in the human body.