Associate Professor
Department of Biology

BSc University of Guelph, 1995
MSc Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1998
Ph.D. Dalhousie University, 2004

Office: Winter Park Institute
Phone: 407-646-2613
E-Mail: fharper@rollins.edu

Courses Taught:

• General Biology
• Human Impacts on Marine Ecosystems
• Invertebrate Biology
• Marine Biology
• Marine Mammalogy
• Evolution
• Marine Biology Senior Seminar

Professional Interests:

I am a marine evolutionary biologist. I am particularly interested in how speciation in the marine environment occurs, hybridization between species, and population genetics of marine organisms. While I am continuing to investigate hybridization between two sister species of sea stars in the Northwest Atlantic (Asterias forbesi and A. rubens), I am also collaborating on a population genetics study of the white mangrove in the Caribbean. I have also worked on hybridization and population genetics studies of blue mussels and sea urchins. The type of studies I conduct range from morphological studies of live animals, to fertilization studies between sperm and eggs in vitro, to molecular studies of the nuclear and mitochondrial DNA.