James R. Morris is Associate Professor in the Biology Department at Brandeis University. He teaches a wide variety of courses for majors and non-majors in evolution, genetics, genomics, anatomy, and health sciences. In addition, he teaches a first-year seminar focusing on Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. He is the recipient of numerous teaching awards from Harvard and Brandeis. His research focuses on the rapidly growing field of epigenetics, making use of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. He currently pursues this research with undergraduates in order to give them the opportunity to do genuine, laboratory-based research early in their scientific careers. Dr. Morris received a Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. In addition, he was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, gave talks to the public on current science at the Museum of Science in Boston, and works on promoting public understanding of personal genetics and genomics.