The IB Honors Faculty - Whether you are interested in applying for IB Honors, or are in the program already... or are just wanting to know who is responsible for making this program work, this page provides links to the professional web pages for the faculty.

Stewart Berlocher has taught in the Honors Biology program for a very large number of years, since well before it was housed in the School of Integrative Biology. Currently, he teaches evolutionary biology as part of IB 372, Ecology and Evolution. In his research, Prof. Berlocher emphasizes insect-plant coevolution and the effect it has on insect systematics. In an effort to understand speciation and host race formation, he has used behavioral, chromosomal, ecological, and genetic approaches.
John Cheeseman identifies his major teaching interest as the development of biologists from students who think they are interested in biology. His research emphasizes the integrated, organismal-level biology of plants, especially mangroves (although he has strayed to transcriptomics in the past few years). Both his research and teaching interests are reflected in the way he teaches organismal biology (IB271). Prof. Cheeseman also directs the IBH program.
Chris Cheng teaches in both the IB Honors organismal biology (IB271), and an upper-level and graduate course in the Environmental and Evolutionary Physiology of Animals. In IB271, she instills students not only with a broad appreciation of the physiology of non-photosynthetic, multi-cellular eukaryotes (i.e. animals), but also with their macroevolutionary relationships. Her research interests are in the broad field of environmental, adaptational and evolutionary physiology of animals, with particular emphasis on freezing avoidance mechanisms based on antifreeze (AF) proteins in polar bony fishes, but also on cold adaptive physiological processes and their responsible protein molecules in these fish.
Jim Dalling has a strong interest in making sure that his ecology courses have strong field components, and this is certainly reflected in the way he teaches IB 372. With a camping weekend to southern Illinois, a local field trip to a fossil rich site, and an independent investigation built into the lab, this course gives students both a strong theoretical grounding in ecology and fun, hands-on experience. Prof. Dalling's own research in the community ecology of tropical trees is also strongly field based. His particular interest is understanding processes that determine the abundance and distribution patterns of pioneer species. Much of his work is based in Panama, and at the large permanent forest plots throughout the tropics coordinated by the Center for Tropical Forest Science.
Charles Whitfield teaches the single solo course in IB Honors, the "evolution of molecules and cells (IB270)". Much of the lab portion course is centered around a model organism, the nematode C. elegans (see the Integrator "worm issue" for more on this and other nematodes). This is still the only course at Illinois that makes use of RNAi, an advanced technique for manipulating genomes. For his own research, Prof. Whitfield's lab studies the molecular mechanisms that underlie social behavior. He and his students (including two IBH undergraduates) are attempting to identify the genes and gene regulatory elements that have been gained, lost, or modified in the evolution of socially organized behavior, especially using honeybees and other insect models.