New Faculty Profile

Katherine Flynn
(Assistant Professor, Department of Biology)

A brief overview of your area of expertise, research and teaching.

I like to call myself an environmental toxicologist. That's a mouthful that means I'm interested in the effects of poisons on the environment. The poisons I like to study are those that act like hormones, particularly the female sex hormone estrogen. The environment I'm most interested in is water and the aquatic animals that live in it. And the effects I study are behavioral changes and changes in protein expression in cells. I'm now setting up a lab here in the Adelphi Science Building where local mussels are living in tanks. Soon my students and I will expose these mussels to pesticides and we'll monitor their behavior then look at their cells.

Why did you come to Adelphi? What has been your experience so far?

I wanted to come back to NY. I had been away for over 5 years. From Italy I was applying for jobs in academia and research all around the NY area. A couple of places brought me in for an interview - AU was one of course - and that already impressed me, bringing me all the way from Italy for an interview! But AU was my first choice because of the people. The Biology Department impressed me with its variety of research the faculty is involved in and with the variety of courses available to bio majors. I felt that at AU I could become a better teacher, I would have the academic freedom to plan and teach and evaluate students the way I want to. Also at AU I felt I would have scholarly freedom, to determine the direction of my own research with the support of the other faculty and of the administration.

What do you wish to contribute? What do you feel strongly about in regards to teaching or your specialization?

I want to take away 'science fear'. I want to encourage students to think independently, to know how to find things out, to question authority. I think it's very important that students understand the scientific process - how thorough it is and how slowly science moves because of that. I want students to find science (and learning) interesting and personally rewarding.