Dr. Warren Porter is the featured speaker for the Sept. 26 presentation of the Thursdays at the U series at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire – Barron County.
Dr. Warren Porter
Porter, professor emeritus of integrative biology and Ardath and Robert Rodale professor of environmental toxicology at UW-Madison, will present “Climate Change Impacts on Wild and Domestic Animals” from 12:30-1:30 p.m. in the Blue Hills Lecture Hall in Ritzinger Hall. The presentation also will be livestreamed at ricelaketv.com.
What is the impact of climate change on wild and domestic animals? Porter has developed and tested generic microclimate and animal computer models of climate effects on animal food and water requirements, behavior, distribution and habitat use in ancient, modern and future climates. His team has computed milk production anywhere on Earth, evolutionary selection forces on dinosaurs and mosquito disease transmission.
Porter has a deep Wisconsin heritage, as he was born in Madison two blocks from where he works. His parents came from Green Bay in the north and from a farm that contained land purchased from Daniel Webster before the Civil War, 20 miles southeast of Madison. Porter received his bachelor’s degree from UW-Madison while playing tuba in the marching band for four years.
He earned his master’s degree and Ph.D. from UCLA before he began a two-year postdoctoral fellowship with a physicist-turned-botanist at the Missouri Botanical Garden and Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He then returned to Madison as an assistant professor and has been there ever since — teaching, taking courses and doing interdisciplinary research.
The Thursdays at the U weekly series is free and open to the public thanks to support from the UW-Eau Claire – Barron County Foundation. Neither seating reservations nor parking permits are needed for in-person attendees.
Although in-person attendance is encouraged, most talks in the series are livestreamed. They also are archived and can be watched later on the Thursdays at the U webpage.
The next lecture in the series will be Oct. 3, with Chris Stein presenting “Protecting Our Precious Pollinators.”
For more information, contact Laura Holden at 715-788-6207 or holdenlk@uwec.edu.
