Craig S. Hood
Professor
E-mail: chood@loyno.edu
Phone: 865-2193, Office: Monroe Hall 358
Home Page: http://www.loyno.edu/~chood/
Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology, Texas Tech University, 1986.
Personal sketch
Craig Hood joined the faculty of Biological Sciences in 1986. He received his Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from Texas Tech in 1986.
Teaching and learning
Craig Hood has taught Biology of Organisms Lecture and Lab and Ecology & Evolutionin the department’s core curriculum; Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy in the department’s advanced elective curriculum; and Cultural Biology and Evolution in the Common Curriculum.
Dr. Hood's subject area expertise is in concepts of evolution, ecology, and the organismal form/function relationship. His approach to teaching is that students are responsible for being engaged in a course, they should work hard at understanding major concepts and achieving course goals. As the instructor, he feels he is responsible for course organization and providing students with the most current ideas and approaches to learning. His focus is on students learning major concepts. However, to do so, students must master fundamental objective knowledge in Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Mathematics. It is clear that we are now in the midst of an Information Age, and it is therefore imperative that students learn to learn using modern information technologies. With this said, his attitude is that these technologies are tools and that people still count -- learning begins and ends with people.
Research interests
Functional morphology and morphometrics, using video-based image analysis and multivariate statistics. Mammalian biodiversity.
Current research interests
Study of geographic variation, fluctuating asymmetry, and sexual dimorphism in vertebrates. Conservation biology of mammals.
Recent publications
Wee, J.L ., A.M. James, and C.S. Hood . 2005. Exploratory investigations of palmella-stage formation in the Synurophyceae. - In: Kristiansen, J. & G. Cronberg (eds.): Chrysophytes - past and present. Proceedings of the Sixth International Chrysophyte Symposium 2-7 August 2004, Lammi , Finland . - Nova Hedwigia Beiheft 128: 257-266
White , D.A., & C.S. Hood . 2004. Vegetation patterns and environmental gradients in tropical dry forests of the northern Yucatan peninsula, Mexico . Journal Vegetation Science 15:151-160
White , D.A., D.P. Hauber , & C.S. Hood . 2004. Clonal differences in Phragmites australis from an unique wetland landscape: the Mississippi River delta . Southeastern Naturalist 3:531-544 .
Guill , J.M., C.S. Hood , & D.C. Heins. 2003. Female body shape variation within and among three species of darters. Ecology of F reshwater Fish. 12:134-140.
Guill , J.M., D.C. Heins, & C.S. Hood . 2003. The effect of phylogeny on interspecific body shape variation in darters. Systematic Biology 52:488–500.
Hood , C. S. 2000. Geometric morphometric approaches to the study of sexual size dimorphism in mammals. Hystrix 11:77-90.
Hood , C. S., and D.C. Heins. 2000. Ontogeny and allometry of body shape in the blacktail shiner, Cyprinella venusta. Copeia 2000: 270-275.