Dr. Karen Warkentin (They/Them/Elle)
Professor, College of Arts and Sciences
- Gender Identity: Genderqueer, Non-Binary, female
- Sexual Orientation: Queer, Bisexual, Pansexual
- Race, Ethnicity, and/or Nationality: white, Canadian, Mennonite
- Language: Spanish
I’m a Professor of Biology, a core faculty member in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, where I have studied frogs since 1998. I came out as an undergraduate in the early 1980’s, in Canada. My research focuses on the integrative biology and phenotypic plasticity of frog embryos, especially red-eyed treefrogs. I worked in environmental education for several years before graduate school and half of my BU teaching has been with non-majors, including in the Core Curriculum and (since 2011) in WGS. I teach collaboratively with humanists & social scientists, and in my egg-science research I collaborate with vibrations engineers. For Biology seniors and graduate students, I teach courses in Phenotypic Plasticity and in the Diversity of Sex and Sexes. I am active in DEI work at BU and in biology more broadly. For more information, check out my lab website.
Contact Dr. Warkentin for academic support, research support, mentoring, and general networking.