2002 Distinguished Researcher

Dr. David White
Department of Biological Sciences

I received my BA from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. As a Junior, I was asked to be a Teaching Assistant and then a Research Assistant. I found I loved both aspects, and my future goals were set. I remained at DePauw for my Masters studying the biology of local streams and then was accepted at the University of Louisville where I worked on the ecology and chemistry of large rivers. Upon graduation, I accepted a position as Assistant Director of the University of Oklahoma Biological Station on Lake Texoma. There my research led to understanding the landscape functions of large reservoirs. Following three years at Oklahoma, I moved to the University of Illinois and the Illinois Natural History Survey, but after only three months, I was recruited to join the faculty at the University of Michigan where I remained for 11 years. There I conducted a wide variety of research projects on Lake Michigan, the Detroit River, and the small streams of Northern Michigan. For 10 years, I taught each summer at the University of Michigan Biological Station at Pellston. My horizons were truly broadened at Michigan developing strong research relationships with Hydrologists, Limnologists, Taxonomists, Ecologists, Geologists, and even Nuclear Physicists. When the position at Murray State for the directorship of the Hancock Biological Station became available, I thought it would be the next logical step in my career and a lot of fun – it has been. My present research focuses on reservoirs (Kentucky Lake) and their tributary streams with particular expertise in the interactions between groundwater and surface water, the behavior and ecology of benthic (bottom dwelling) organisms, and aquatic beetles. Helping me in my efforts have been nearly 50 graduate students, both Masters and Ph.D. candidates. To date, I have had 126 scientific publications and have contributed to a number of books including this year the chapter on the Ohio River Basin in The Rivers of North America and the chapter on aquatic beetles in The Aquatic Insects of North America. In my professional world, I have been the President of the Association of Ecosystem Research Centers, the Editor of the Southwestern Naturalist, North American Benthological Society, and Organization of Biological Field Stations and have served on executive boards of a number of societies. Within Kentucky, I am a member of the Executive Committee of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) which strives to help new researchers gather funding for their ideas.

Last Modified: December 1, 2006