Introduction
Dr. Jerry Husak grew up in southeast Texas, went to college in west Texas, and did his graduate work at Oklahoma State University. He then held postdoctoral positions at Virginia Tech, the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, and the University of South Dakota before joining the faculty at St. Thomas. His work combines physiology, behavior, and life-history theory in an evolutionary framework to understand how form and function evolve.
Dr. Husak has authored over 80 peer-reviewed papers. He is an associate editor for Functional Ecology and Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, and serves on the editorial board of Ecological and Evolutionary Physiology. He has received funding for his research from the National Science Foundation and National Geographic.
Lab website: http://jerryhusak.weebly.com/index.html
"My research focuses on understanding how the processes of natural and sexual selection shape physiological and morphological traits. Specifically, I am interested in how and why organisms allocate limited resources to different aspects of their form and function, as well as what trade-offs occur with those decisions'. I am particularly interested in how allocation to physical performance abilities (running, biting, flying, etc.) affects allocation to metabolism, reproduction, and immunity. To accomplish this, I integrate theory and techniques from physiology, evolutionary ecology, animal behavior, and functional morphology, and I combine laboratory experiments with correlative studies of natural populations. I primarily work with reptiles as model systems, and I conduct research in the southeastern US and the Caribbean."