Author Description

About the Author For the past two decades, Cecie Starr has been known as one of the best-selling biology textbook authors. Her texts, appreciated for their clarity in both the written word and the visual representation of biological concepts, include multiple editions of BIOLOGY: THE UNITY AND DIVERSITY OF LIFE, BIOLOGY: CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS, and BIOLOGY TODAY AND TOMORROW. Her original dream was to become an architect. Instead of building houses, she now builds, with care and attention to detail, incredible texts based on this philosophy: I invite students into a chapter through an intriguing story. Once inside, they get the great windows that biologists construct on the world of life. Biology is not just another house. It is a conceptual mansion. I hope to do it justice. Ralph Taggart, Former Chair of Biological Sciences at Michigan State University, Ralph Taggert is now the chair of Geological Sciences. Professor Taggart, known for his outstanding research in Paleobotany, has taught the general biology course for over 20 years. Christine Evers has been creating multimedia and Web-based materials to supplement Starr and other science texts for ten years. She earned her B.S. in Biology from SUNY Stony Brook. After working as a research assistant studying the developmental biology of slime mold, she was awarded an N.S.F. fellowship to attend Yale, where she studied evolutionary biology and honeybee behavior. She has a strong interest in science education and serves as a member of her local school board. Lisa Starr earned her B.A. in Chemistry/Biochemistry from the University of California at San Diego Revelle College in 1982. Over the next five years, she became expert in molecular and cell biology as she helped build a veterinary virology research program at the startup biotech firm Syntro (which was later spun off into Protein Polymer Technologies). During this time, Lisa invented the cDNA cloning kit and the mRNA isol