Board Member

Dr. Jeff Parmelee is a biology professor at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine.  He is an evolutionary biologist and ecologist by training but teaches a wide variety of biology courses such as Human Anatomy and Physiology, The Natural History of the Galápagos, and Herpetology.  He received his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas, where his dissertation focused on the feeding ecology and evolution of a community of rainforest frogs in Peru. He earned his master’s degree in biology at Illinois State University, where his thesis research was on the community ecology of four mole salamander species on an island in southern Illinois.  Although his primary research interest is amphibians and reptiles, he also has a passion for preparing and collecting skulls and mushroom foraging, and is the faculty advisor for the student group the “UNE FunGis.”  He has led student groups around the world on biology courses to countries such as Costa Rica, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, Madagascar, Borneo, and Australia. His research publications include describing a new species of poison dart frog from Venezuela, a study of how farm ponds support amphibian populations, field guides to tadpoles and larvae in the Midwest and a key to turtle eggs in Iowa, rattlesnake venom evolution, parasites in frogs and lizards from the Amazon, and how artificial shelters differ in effectiveness for sampling snakes.