The College of Science welcomed Dr. Zacchaeus Compson to the UNT Biology Department and the Advanced Environmental Research Institute (AERI) in January of 2021. He currently teaches Evolution and the Evolution lab, and he hopes to eventually teach courses in aquatic ecology, riparian ecology, environmental genomics, and biostats.

"Regardless of the class I am teaching, I want to teach all my students how to think critically," said Dr. Compson. "In terms of subjects, my favorite subjects to teach are ecology courses, like aquatic ecology and riparian ecology. I also love teaching biostats classes that allow students to get opportunities to learn skills (including coding in R and Python) that they can apply to their own datasets."

Dr. Compson obtained his PhD in Biology from Northern Arizona University, where he used isotopically labeled leaf litter to trace carbon and nitrogen through aquatic food webs. He then completed two postdocs in ecoinformatics, one at the Centre for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss) at Northern Arizona University, and a second at the Canadian Rivers Institute (CRI) at the University of New Brunswick. Most recently, he served as the Lead Ecologist at the Centre for Environmental Genomics Applications (CEGA), where he explored ways of rapidly assessing whole-system biodiversity using eDNA metabarcoding.

At his lab in AERI at UNT, Dr. Compson hopes to create a research team that will work on ways of making trait-based food web models using high-resolution data from DNA metabarcoding, and testing these models using isotopic labeling approaches.

"Most of my work is very collaborative and interdisciplinary," said Dr. Compson. "While this is clearly not unique to the UNT community, I hope that my diverse perspectives and skillsets will add to the collaborative atmosphere here." In terms of specific skills, his expertise lies in DNA metabarcoding and isotopic labelling, which are important tools in assessing biodiversity and studying food webs.

"One of the primary reasons I decided to join the faculty at UNT was because of the incredible sense of collaboration and community I felt when I came here during my interview," he said. "The fact that I get to teach some of my favorite subjects in such a diverse, dynamic community is simply a bonus!"

Outside of research and teaching, Dr. Compson enjoys running, climbing, and creative writing, especially creative nonfiction. "I spend a lot of time writing creatively, which provides a needed balance to the vast amount of technical writing I do as a scientist. I have published poems and short stories in a variety of literary journals, but I mainly write to work out challenges and issues I am dealing with in my life. I find the process of writing both meditative and therapeutic."

Learn more about Dr. Compson's lab and work at https://compsonlab.org.