Lawrence W. Zettler, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Department of Biology
Curator, Illinois College Herbarium
Manager, Living Plant Collection

Education: University of Florida-Gainesville, B.S. 1987; Clemson University, Ph.D. 1994

Courses: Our Biological World; Plants and Society; General Biology; Botany; Introduction to Research; Algae and Fungi; Entomology; Tropical Ecology (lab in Costa Rica); Marine Biology (lab in Florida Keys)

Research Interests: Orchid seed germination and seedling survivability, fungal diversity and physiological interactions with arthropods

It can be difficult to hold a conversation with Professor Lawrence Zettler while he is out for a walk.

"I get so caught up in analyzing the natural world around me that I probably miss half of what people are saying," Zettler admits. "Botanists tend to see things most people overlook. Increasingly, society is withdrawing from nature and that's tragic. Nature is masked by video games and rushing traffic. One of my challenges as an educator is to make sure my students learn to appreciate what surrounds them—to appreciate what plants do for us."

Zettler learned to appreciate his surroundings early. His father was a botany professor at the University of Florida-Gainesville and an expert in plant pathology. As a boy, Zettler went with his father to campus greenhouses to water plants and check soil quality. After graduating from the University of Florida in 1987, Zettler spent nearly a decade in the mountains of upstate South Carolina as a graduate student at Clemson University and as a visiting professor at Furman University.

In 1996, Zettler came to Illinois College, attracted by the small class size and potential for program growth. Among his responsibilities, Zettler directs the Orchid Recovery Program, an ongoing research project aimed at growing North America's rare, threatened and endangered native orchids from seed using fungi. Because Zettler is an advocate of "learning by doing," students play a key role in designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, and presenting significant findings to the scientific community.

Zettler also overhauled and reclassified the Illinois College insect collection and revitalized its plant museum. He established two field courses; one in which students travel to a rainforest in Costa Rica to study tropical ecology and another in which students travel to the Florida Keys to explore marine biology.

"You can talk about plants until you're blue in the face but when students see them first hand, they're amazed," he says. "Most of the students I've taken describe the experience as life-changing."

Another influence in Zettler's life has been his mother, who taught him an appreciation for the natural world through art. Zettler illustrated 167 dragonfly species in color for the book, Dragonflies of North America (2000). He also depicted 115 black fly species in the book, The Black Flies of North America (2004).

 

   

 

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