<p>
	<img alt="" src="{filedir_5}Darren-Proppe-100pxl.jpg" style="cursor: default; float: left; width: 100px; height: 95px; " />Meet Dr. Darren Proppe, affectionately nicknamed &ldquo;DProp&rdquo; by his Au Sable students, this year will be teaching Research Methods I during Summer Session I at the Great Lakes Campus. In the past Darren taught the&nbsp;Animal Ecology&nbsp;course at the Great Lakes Campus&nbsp;during Summer Session I. Darren is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Calvin College and is broadly trained in animal behavior, ecology, and conservation biology. His research interests have focused on vocal communication and the distribution of songbirds in response to anthropogenic noise, building from his Ph.D. research at the University of Alberta.&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	After growing up saying, &ldquo;I will never go under the ocean or out into space,&rdquo; Dr. Darren Proppe started his research career studying coral diseases on a reef 100 miles off the coast of Texas as an undergraduate at Texas A&amp;M University. Shortly after graduation, however, a temporary position assessing populations of endangered golden-cheeked warbler in Central Texas shifted Darren&rsquo;s focus from the marine environment to terrestrial ecosystems. His interest in birds, the ecological processes that support them, and the need for conservation measures, blossomed throughout his graduate research and as an assistant professor.</p>
