Lisa Zinn can help with questions about:
Birds and Bird nesting, Water quality, Natural History of Vermont, Sustainability, Conservation Biology
Dr. Lisa Zinn teaches in the Wildlife and Forest Conservation, Environmental Science, and Biology programs. Her focus is on quality education that encourages student engagement through student-centered classroom learning as well as field studies. The Johnson campus and surrounding natural areas provide a wonderful classroom extension for Lisa’s courses. Lisa also mentors students in science research through class based projects and summer research assistantships which ground students in scientific principles while preparing them for their careers or for further academic study.
Lisa has a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science with a concentration in Conservation Biology from Miami University in Ohio. Her Master’s thesis was on the impact of lakeshore housing on bird populations around lakes in Northern Michigan. Her Doctoral degree is from Ball State in Natural Resources and Environmental Management. Her research there focused on the effectiveness of constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment.
In her early career Dr. Zinn was a faculty member at Goshen College in Indiana where she taught in a Masters of Environmental Education program and then helped develop and directed a Sustainability Leadership Semester program for undergraduate students.
Dr. Zinn’s current research is on the timing of songbird nesting and how that is shifting with climate change. She has a Master Bander license from the U.S. Geological Survey and works with student researchers every summer catching and banding birds for her own research and also as part of the long-term MAPS study for the Institute for Bird Populations.
Dr. Zinn banding a Chestnut-sided warbler