Daniel Blackburn is the Thomas S. Johnson Distinguished Professor of Biology, and a winner of the Thomas Church Brownell Prize for Teaching Excellence. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, he earned advanced degrees (M.Sc. and Ph.D.) from Cornell University in zoology, with a concentration in functional and evolutionary morphology. Following graduate school, he took a position as Research Associate with the Dept. of Cell Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.  As a Trinity College faculty member, he has taught courses in zoology, histology, neurobiology, and electron microscopy, and served for 10 years as chairman of the Dept. of Biology.  Prof. Blackburn obtained funding to construct Trinity's Electron Microscopy Facility, helped organize national teaching workshops, and collaborated in founding a new organization in science education.  His research focuses primarily on functional morphology and evolution of reproductive specializations in reptiles and other vertebrates, and he has published over 100 papers in such journals as Journal of Morphology, Journal of Experimental Zoology, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Evolution, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.  Many of these papers have been co-authored with Trinity undergraduates doing research in his lab.