I’ve taught nearly 3,000 Brown University undergraduates in the life sciences, and received university honors for excellence in teaching.

These classes help students learn how to think, not what to think, by drawing on the scientific method and examples in evolutionary biology and Earth history.

The Diversity of Life (BIOL0210)

The Diversity of Life (BIOL0210) is a gateway to the open curriculum at Brown University. This course explores biological diversity – the number of plants, animals and other organisms, and the functions and processes that support life – from the perspective of the life sciences. Examples draw on case studies from the geological record, evolution, genomics, behavior, sexual selection and more.

  • Illustration of an ʻIʻiwi, a scarlet Hawaiian honeycreeper with a long curved bill.
    ʻIʻiwi
    Drepanis coccinea
    Hawaiian honeycreepers — a famous example of adaptive radiation
  • Illustration of an Achatinella tree snail with a yellow and banded brown shell.
    Oʻahu tree snail
    Partulina mighelsiana
    An example of non-adaptive evolution
  • Illustration of Erbenochile, a trilobite with a tall tower-shaped compound eye.
    Trilobite
    Erbenochile erbeni
    An extinct animal that could see in 360 degrees

Module OneDefining diversity and the history of life

The first module sets the stage by defining biological diversity and disparity, and sketching out major events in the history of life on Earth that are relevant to understanding the origin and production of living things. We discuss conditions on Earth prior to the appearance of diverse life, and changes in the Earth system that may have caused the Cambrian explosion – the sudden appearance of animals 541 million years ago – and subsequent mass extinctions.

The course moves beyond taxonomy to understand the associated functions and processes that generate and maintain variety among plants, animals, and other organisms.

Module TwoMechanisms of diversification

The second module grapples with evolutionary mechanisms of diversification, and the conditions that allow these mechanisms to operate. We address the molecular basis of inheritance, natural selection, the importance of geographic isolation, sexual selection and competition. As examples, we consider both adaptive (e.g., Hawaiian honeycreepers) and non-adaptive (e.g., land snails in the genus Achatinella) radiations.

Module ThreeBig-picture questions

The third and final module applies this framework to big-picture questions. We discuss where beauty comes from, the evolution of morality, personality, and emotion, the scientific method, how life deals with chance and contingency, and the processes that lead to innovation in human and non-human animals. The course concludes with the diversity of all living things, how much of this diversity is known, and whether life exists elsewhere in the universe.

What students say

It completely changed my world view.

  • I was able to learn not only about biology, but about myself.
  • You always hear about these ‘life changing classes’ – this is one.
  • The way Kellner teaches and his passion for critical thinking is what really made the class great.
  • Puts things into perspective like no other class I’ve ever taken.
  • This is a biology course, but it also touches on genuine questions, like the probability of extraterrestrial life, human interactions and why we exist.
  • I think there is something for everyone here.
  • Whether it is part of your concentration or not, this course is exceptional for a foundational understanding of the diversity of life and provides optimism for the future.
  • This course is incredibly engaging and fascinating for people in any concentration. I cannot recommend this class enough, especially to take when just entering college.
  • He explains everything so well and encourages us to think for ourselves.
  • Word cloud of student comments about the instructor. The largest words are passionate, clear, material, students, always, available, helpful and teaching.
    What students say about me
    Most frequent words in student evaluations of BIOL0210.
  • Word cloud of student comments about the course. The largest words are learned, diversity, evolution, scientific, biology, earth, life, helped and knowledge.
    What students say about the course
    Most frequent words in student evaluations of BIOL0210.

Community Ecology (BIOL1450)

Community ecology is the scientific study of how groups of different species living in the same place interact with each other and the environment.

  • A yellow spider with a happy face on its abdomen
    Hawaiian happy-face spider
    Tetragnatha brevignatha
    Happy-face spiders reveal rules of community assembly
  • A colorful bird from the rain forest of New Guinea.
    Wilson’s Bird of Paradise
    Cicinnurus respublica
    Birds of Paradise engage in elaborate courtship rituals
  • An olive-colored forest bird with a curved upper bill and straight lower bill.
    ʻAkiapōlāʻau
    Hemignathus wilsoni
    A critically endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper

This course focuses on tropical rain forests and coral reefs by drawing on cases studies. The course begins by establishing biological diversity as a paradox requiring a resolution. We discuss early observations of the British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, and why early naturalists came to see biological diversity in the tropics as a paradox in comparison to the temperate zone. The course discusses the geological and environmental determinants of distributions of biomes, and patterns of evolutionary diversification in these systems.

We then attempt to explain the paradox of biological diversity. We discuss negative density dependence, dispersal limitation, the effects of a varying environment, and local adaptations as potential hypotheses, and we evaluate the strengths and limitations of these perspectives. This section of the course introduces trophic ecology and the importance of “enemies” to the study of community ecology.

The final portion of the course introduces statistical mechanics of biological diversity at large spatial scales. We discuss the distribution of commonness and rarity among species as examples in invertebrates and trees, and whether differences in this distribution among locations that differ markedly in numbers of species may originate from a common set of relatively simple processes.

Computational analysis of spatial data (BIOL2430)

This class is an advanced graduate seminar that assumes a strong background in computational data analysis. It is open to undergraduates with instructor approval.

The course develops computational tools for the analysis of spatial data with an emphasis on automated workflows that can be easily repeated and scaled using local distributed or cloud-based computing. The course is appropriate for graduate students with an interest in Earth or planetary remote sensing or medical imaging, as well as students with an interest in large spatial data sets.

Spatial data refers to data projected in a coordinate system for which we may need to deal with re-projection and coordinate transformations, or evaluation of spatial proximity among alternative sources of information, such as extracting values from one data set at the coordinate locations of another, and performing operations on spatial attributes. Spatial data also include data for which there is a spatial component to the measurements, even when those measurements are not projected in a coordinate system, such as images collected using a digital focal-plane array, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and computed tomography (CT) scans.

Topics addressed include accessing spatial and remote sensing data, reduction and visualization of high-dimensional data, distributed computing, data simulation, uncertainty analysis and propagation, and how to work computationally with multiple sources of spatial data simultaneously. The course develops examples using Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation lidar data. Students will develop computational projects or contribute to an existing project.