About our authors
TERRY AND GERRY AUDESIRK grew up in New Jersey, where they met as undergraduates, Gerry at Rutgers University and Terry at Bucknell University. After marrying in 1970, they moved to California, where Terry earned her doctorate in marine ecology at the University of Southern California and Gerry earned his doctorate in neurobiology at the California Institute of Technology. As postdoctoral students at the University of Washington's marine laboratories, they worked together on the neural bases of behavior, using a marine mollusk as a model system.
They are now emeritus professors of biology at the University of Colorado Denver, where they taught introductory biology and neurobiology from 1982 through 2006. In their research, funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health, they investigated the mechanisms by which neurons are harmed by low levels of environmental pollutants and protected by estrogen.
Terry and Gerry are long-time members of many conservation organizations and share a deep appreciation of nature and of the outdoors. They enjoy hiking in the Rockies, walking and horseback riding near their home outside Steamboat Springs, and singing in the community chorus. Keeping up with the amazing and endless stream of new discoveries in biology provides them with a continuing source of fascination and stimulation. They are delighted that their daughter Heather has become a teacher and is inspiring a new generation of students with her love of chemistry.
BRUCE E. BYERS is a Midwesterner transplanted to the hills of western Massachusetts, where he is a professor in the biology department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has been a member of the faculty at UMass (where he also completed his doctoral degree) since 1993. Bruce teaches courses in evolution, ornithology, and animal behavior, and does research on the function and evolution of bird vocalizations.
