Tentatively titled Principles of Microbial Diversity, this book is being written for the American Society for Microbiology Press as a textbook is intended for undergraduate seniors in Microbiology curricula. The perspective in this textbook will be phylogenetic and organismal, from the Carl Woese school, and will be based on the MB 451 course listed below.

Want to know more? See a copy of the textbook proposal

Jim Brown is the Undergraduate Coordinator in the Department of Microbiology. As such, he is responsible for organizing undergraduate advising, orientation, undergraduate paperwork, and serves as the chair of the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee. The Undergraduate Coordinator serves as the liason between undergraduate students and advisors in Microbiology, and the the CALS/NCSU Administration.

Jim Brown’s teaching has been recognized by an Outstanding Teacher Award, which makes him a member of the NCSU Academy of Outstanding Teachers.  Prior awardees from the Department of Microbiology are Prof. Gerry Luginbuhl (1980) and Prof. Gerald Elkan (1972).

Jim also received the 2005 Alumni Outstanding Teacher Award.

Want to know more? See a copy of Jim's OTA Teaching Portfolio

Jim was also awarded the 2008-2009 CALS Outstanding Advisor Award.

Introductory Topics in Microbiology is for freshmen and transfer microbiology majors in their first year at North Carolina State University. The course provides basic instruction in computing, academic policies, and study skills related to reading, comprehending, and discussing scientific information in general and microbiology in particular.

Want to know more? Visit the MB 103 course web site

Microbial Diversity is a senior-level, undergraduate laboratory course modeled after the Woods Hole course and the American Society of Microbiology recommendations. This course includes direct experience with molecular phylogenetic analysis, in combination with complementary traditional analyses of microbial diversity, as the focus of the course. The format for the lab section of the course is "project oriented"; instead of a series of discrete laboratory exercises, the students carry a series of experiments in parallel throughout the semester. The students perform a series of classical enrichments and isolations (starting from environmental samples collected by the students), carrying them from week to week as the semester progresses. One of these isolations is quickly completed, and serves as the starting material for a series of modern molecular biology experiments, in which the student purify DNA, amplify the ribosomal DNA by PCR, and have a portion of this gene sequenced. This sequence information is the starting point for a computationally intensive term project in which they perform a detailed molecular phylogenetic analysis of the organism they isolated. The class meets 4 times each week: twice for 50 minute lectures (also available on-line), once for a 50 minute free-ranging discussion session, and once for a 3 hour lab (there are 3 lab sections of up to 24 students each).

The course is rated highly by the faculty and students in the department. These summary data below are averages from student evaluations:

Just for fun, here are the best and worst student comments I've had for the course.

Want to know more? Go to the Microbial Diversity course web site

Students in undergraduate research in my lab spend 1 or 2 (or more) semesters learning experimental molecular biology and performing experiments and analyses. The students are under the instruction of a graduate student, an experienced undergraduate student, or the PI, but generally work on their own research project. Students present their work in lab meetings, and prepare a brief written research summary. This experience is indispensable for students that will seek employment in laboratory science and for those that will seek admission to a graduate program. Students get credit under a variety of course designations, or work in the lab on a volunteer basis. This lists also includes a few students who did traditional independent studies with me.

Graduate students in their first semester generally spend 1 month each in 3 or 4 labs to 'learn the ropes' in the department, and to gain the experience needed to make an informed decision on a permanent research advisor. Rotation students in my lab are under the instruction of a graduate student or postdoc, but generally work on their own research project.

These students have been teaching assistants for MB 451 (Microbial Diversity) and have participated fully in developing, preparing, and teaching the lab portion of this course.

These students were mentored as graduate students in my lab:

Instrumentation was a required course for all incoming graduate students, designed to teach the students how to safely and effectively use the facilities of the department and university. This course was team taught by many of the faculty of the department, and was organized by Prof. Paul Bishop. My contribution to this course was a lecture on sequence analysis facilities, given every year, reviewing on-line programs such as the NCBI web site, NCSU facilities such as UWGCG, and local programs including MacVector and BioEdit. The course has been defunct for several years - I participated from 1994 - 2003.

The Department strongly encourages graduate students to attend the Department of Microbiology seminar series throughout their degree program. Two credits (two semesters) are required of all graduate students. In the years 1994/1995, 1999/2000 and 2003/2004, I was responsible for organizing the Microbiology seminar series, and for the graduate students taking this for course credit.

Want to know more? Go to the Microbiology Seminar web site