Wednesday, March 12, 2003
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Wednesday, March 12, 2003 |
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Clayton State's Batman... Dr. Stephen Burnett, Bat Expert
To the bat cave or to Clayton State, if you're biology professor Dr. Stephen C. Burnett, expert on bioacoustics and the echolocation calls of bats. An authority on the furry winged creatures of the night, Burnett specializes in Eptesicus fuscus, commonly known as the big brown bat. Burnett shares his bat knowledge with the community in a variety of ways. Whether it be speaking with pre-school though high school age students, talking with Boy Scout troops, or lecturing conservation societies, Burnett is passionate when it comes to educating the public about bats and their often-misunderstood reputation. If you are interested in having Burnett speak in your community or classroom, e-mail StephenBurnett@mail.clayton.edu or call 770-960-4256. What's he up to now? "I am currently working on individual variation in echolocation calls of big brown bats, trying to determine if individual variation is present in calls in the field as well as the lab. I am also investigating the ability of artificial neural networks to census bats based solely on their echolocation calls," he explained. Interestingly, Burnett was once involved with a study to determine the age and sex of bats solely by analyzing the mammals' echolocation calls. So how did Burnett become batman? Originally interested in the acoustic calls of cardinals, Burnett stumbled upon his interest in bats quite by surprise. "One day while out taking some pictures [of birds], I heard a strange sound, sort of like 'thip-thip-thip.' I looked up and saw a bird that was flying very strangely. When the 'bird' landed on the trunk of a tree, it was pretty obvious that what I was really seeing was a bat." Beginning his study of bats while in graduate school, Burnett earned a B.A. in biology from Carleton College (1992), a M.S. in zoology from Ohio State University (1997), and a Ph.D in evolution, ecology, and organismal biology from Ohio State University (2001). He began teaching biology at Clayton State in 2001 and has taught seven courses and five corresponding lab classes as of fall 2002. In addition to teaching, Burnett is the faculty advisor for Clayton State's biology majors and is a member of many societies involving bats and biology. To learn more about Burnett and his past and present studies on bats visit Burnett's homepage at http://a-s.clayton.edu/burnett. There you'll find Burnett's first picture of a bat, an explanation of how bats use echolocation, sonograms of bat calls, and much more.
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