Bill Cole WP test site

Biodiversity Ecology & Evolution

Curriculum vitae

William Wayne Cole                                                     RESUME, April /25/2017

Degrees:

B. Sc. (1985) Ecology, Department of Botany, University of Guelph, Canada
M. Sc. (1988) Department of Botany, University of Guelph, Canada
Thesis title: Spatial & Genealogical Aspects of mating in Silene cucubalus

Current Position:

Research Tech, Growth chamber Co-ordinator & Department Webmaster
Dept of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto

Work phone 416-978-6472, cell 416-729-7779
Email bill.cole@utoronto.ca

 

SUMMARY

I have extensive glasshouse, lab and field experience getting research projects completed.  I interact well with staff, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and faculty.  For my first 27 years I managed Professor Barrett’s large research lab.  In the last four years I have spent more time helping to maintain the growth chambers, documenting the glasshouse collection in a web page and learning the greenhouse systems.  This included integrated pest management practices with a focus on biological control.  I have become familiar  with what is required to support the undergrad labs. I play a key role in keeping content up to date, improving site design and providing user support for  EEB staff and faculty.  Our department web site is a content management system (CMS) which is hosted by U of T. I also provide varying degrees of support to our many WordPress pages that feature special facilities (KSR, GF) and individual lab pages use  (>15 lab pages).  In addition I help out with Department duties. (EEB 202 course admin, Vehicle maintenance, field collections for undergrad labs) and I’m on the social committee.

 

Research:  I’m co-author on 15 peer reviewed publications including one Nature paper (Anderson, Cole & Barrett, 2005). I have long history of data analysis and production of publication quality reports.   I’ve organized and completed many large scale research projects and coordinated hiring of work study students, summer students and volunteers.  I have manages lab finances for the Barrett lab (27 years), the Rowe lab (5 years) and helped in purchasing of supplies and major equipment.  More recently I’ve taken over billing for growth facility chambers and rooms.

Web and social media: I have extensive web site construction and maintenance experience.  From the Department web site to numerous lab web pages. With the reorganization of Botany and Zoology I helped design, launch and maintain the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology web site.  Our Department hosts web pages for individual research labs.  Many of which are WordPress sites.  I provide support to Professors and Graduate students to design and troubleshoot WordPress web pages. (i.e. Barrett lab pages, Rowe lab pages and many more)

Growth Facilities: In the last four years (since, Jan 2013) I have expanded my horticultural tool set by managing and troubleshooting our over 80 growth chambers and rooms.  I joined the Association of Education and Research Greenhouse Curators (AERGC), attending the annual meeting/workshop in Cornell (July 18-21, 2016) where I learned many aspects of integrated pest management and grow facilities best practices. I obtained a pesticide license in 2016 after a 1 week online course (97.5%) which allows me to purchase and apply pesticides when needed.  I have working with our chief horticulturalist Bruce Hall to learn the standard operation protocols (SOP)of our glasshouse operations as well as some idiosyncrasies  (Priva control systems, heating valve and vent troubleshooting).  To become better familiar with our plant collection I have been highlighting our plant collection in a website  (see PLANT COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS).  This year I have assisted the chief horticulturalist Bruce Hall in researching and planning for growth chamber retro-fitting new computer controllers.  We have a total of 4 chambers scheduled this year (1-Priva control system, 3-Biochamber systems)

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

As lab manager I facilitate research to varying degrees depending on the project and strengths of people involved.  This varies from ordering supplies, helping in the design set up and execution of large experiments to learning new statistical methods, programs or writing code to handle large data sets.   In addition to helping students in the lab I usually have a project that I’m responsible for which I complete to first draft of a paper then together we finish and submit for review and publication (i.e. Ref#).  I have presented these projects at lab meetings and local, national and international meetings.  I have been an active member of the Botany and EEB departments, serving on committees (IT committee, Health and safety co-chair, Social committee) work well with others or on my own.

I’ve estimated mating systems from a number of species of plants using genetic markers (used and modified Ritland’s mltr FORTRAN program employing a maximum likelihood estimators, Ritland, 2002).  I have extensive experience in statistical analysis.  Our lab was one of the first to use repeated measures analysis to the analysis of large data sets.  With the power of computers now available, new approaches to statistical analysis have become possible  (i.e. estimating actual distributions rather than trying to fit to a normal distribution).  Most of my academic career has be working on studying plants and their pollinators, however recently I completed a molecular biology study on water striders in Professor Rowe’s lab.  I have participated in and led fieldwork in: Brazil, Spain, Portugal, Australia, USA and Canada, and have presented six papers at provincial, national and international meetings.

I designed and maintained the first web pages for the Department of Botany and participated in the committee to contract out its first professional make-over. I updated content to these sites as Botany and Zoology reorganized into 2 new departments: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Cell and Systems Biology. As Botany web master, I actively encouraged professors to create individual lab web pages (with a standing offer to generate a simple web site if they would send me the material), post course materials and strove to keep content up to date in an accessible format.  With the creation of the new Departments, I returned to providing technical and web support for undergrad courses (45% FTE) Bio 251, EEB 202 & 331 as I continued my roles of research technician and lab manager.  I continued to update and maintain the Barrett lab pages (http://labs.eeb.utoronto.ca/barrett/index.html) and beginning January 2010 started working in Professor Rowe’s lab as research manager along with updating his lab pages (http://labs.eeb.utoronto.ca/rowe/).  Currently I’m working on a new website for EEB using the Computer Management System soft ware (CMS) and investigating using the Word Press server side support to develop individual web pages for research labs.

I have extensive lab experience in both the research and class lab setting.    This includes electrophoresis, DNA extractions, and PCR reactions. Micro-satellite scoring and DNA sequencing are primarily outsourced now but I have experience with processing this data and a good understanding of the Biology motivating these studies and class labs

 

RESEARCH RELATED EXPERIENCE

I have  worked with Professor Barrett from 1988-2015, which has been one of the largest, best-funded and productive labs in Canada.  We study the ecology and evolution of plant mating systems.  http://labs.eeb.utoronto.ca/barrett/

Field studies and collecting trips, Field studies (3 x Spain, 3 x Brazil, Australia, Southern US, Jokers Hill, Southern Ontario, California)  These trips involved collection of seed and field measurements critical to many Ph.D. thesis research.

Array Experiments (Etobicoke, 1990-1995); Crossed, assayed and screened plants of Eichhornia paniculata that were used in experimental arrays.  These experiments needed a sufficiently large number and size of plants, which were assigned treatments with specific molecular markers.

I developed and ran population genetics lab for undergrad course.  Lab set up for Bio251 labs (3 yrs.)  Developed the Botany web site; management and daily postings. Trouble shooting network and computer problems of lab and some faculty. Familiar with process of securing funding (assisted in CFI & NSERC grant applications)

  • Horticulturalist assistant:  Learning greenhouse controls and maintenance (Priva; see References for company details), collection documentation and web page presentation (http://gf.eeb.utoronto.ca/plant-collection-highlights/), Growth chamber & room trouble shooting, pest control, maintenance and scheduling the use of.

COMPUTER RELATED EXPERIENCE

  • Web site design & management: with various Content Management Systems (CMS, WordPress) for our department and individual research labs. Dept of Botany (1999-2006), Dept of  Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (2006-present)
  • Data collection, analysis and presentation: with collection (Excel, SAS, Maple math package), analysis (SAS, JMP, Fortran, Maple, Pascal) and presentation (MS Office, Acrobat: Photoshop, Illustrator, In-design)
  • Growth chamber/room maintenance and trouble shooting:  (>80 chamber/rooms) Enconair, Conviron, Biochamber

 

PERSONAL STRENGTHS

  • Very strong interpersonal skills, ability to facilitate, organize & communicate
  • Excellent work ethic and ability to learn new technology or techniques
  • Ability to troubleshooting diverse problems

 

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

I enjoy soaring, cycling and skiing.  Toronto Soaring Club.

 

PUBLICATIONS

  • Anderson, B., Pauw, A., Cole, W.W., Barrett S.C.H. (2016). Pollination, mating and reproductive fitness in a plant population with bimodal floral-tube length. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 29:1631-1642. doi: 10.1111/jeb.12899 (pdf)
  • Puentes, A., Cole, W.W. & Barrett, S.C.H. (2013). Trimorphic incompatibility in Pontederia subovata(Pontederiaceae): An aquatic macrophyte from lowland South America. International Journal of Plant Sciences 174:47–56. doi 10.1086/668229 (pdf)
  • Anderson, B., Cole, W.W. & Barrett, S.C.H. (2005). Specialized bird perch aids cross-pollination. Nature 435, 41-42. (pdf)
  • Zhang, L., Barrett, S.C.H., Gao, J-Y., Chen, J., Cole, W.W., Liu, Y., Bai, Z-L. & Li, Q-J. (2005). Predicting mating patterns from pollination syndromes: the case of “sapromyiophily” in Tacca chantrieri (Taccaceae) American Journal of Botany 92, 517-524. (pdf)
  • Barrett, S.C.H., Harder, L.D. & Cole, W.W. (2004). Correlated evolution of floral morphology and mating-type frequencies in a sexually polymorphic plant. Evolution 58, 964-975. (pdf)
  • Barrett, S.C.H., Cole, W.W. & Herrera, C.M. (2004). Mating patterns and genetic diversity in the wild daffodilNarcissus longispathus (Amaryllidaceae). Heredity 92, 459-465. (pdf)
  • Arroyo, J., Barrett, S.C.H., Hidalgo, R., & Cole, W.(2002). Evolutionary maintenance of stigma-height dimorphism inNarcissus papyraceus (Amarylliadaceae). American Journal of Botany 89,1242-1249. ( pdf )
  • Sage, T. L., Griffin, S.R., Pontieri, V., Drobac, P., Cole, W.W., & Barrett, S.C.H. (2001). Stigmatic self-incompatibility and mating patterns in Trillium grandiflorum and Trillium erectum (Melanthiaceae). Annals of Botany 88, 829-841. (pdf )
  • Barrett, S.C.H., Wilken, D.H. & Cole, W.W. (2000). Heterostyly in the Lamiaceae: the case of Salvia brandegeei. Plant Systematics & Evolution 223, 211-219. ( pdf )
  • Harder, L.D., Barrett, S.C.H., & Cole, W. (2000). The mating consequences of sexual segregation within inflorescences of flowering plants. Proceedings of the Royal Society Ser. B. 267, 315-320. ( pdf )
  • Sage, T.L., Strumas, F., Cole, W.W. & Barrett, S.C.H. (1999). Differential ovule development following self- and cross-pollination: The basis of self-sterility in Narcissus triandrus (Amaryllidaceae). American Journal of Botany 86, 855-970. ( pdf )
  • Barrett, S.C.H., Cole, W. & Harder, L.D. (1998). Experimental studies on the effects of floral design and display on plant mating. In: Reproductive Biology in Systematics, Conservation & Economic Botany. (Eds. S.J. Owen & P.J. Rudell), pp. 1-13. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
  • Barrett, S.C.H., Cole, W.W., Arroyo, J., Cruzan, M.B., & Lloyd, D.G. (1997). Sexual polymorphisms in Narcissus triandrus : is this species tristylous ? Heredity 78: 135–145. (pdf)
  • Barrett, S.C.H., Harder, L.D. & Cole, W.W. (1994). Effects of flower number and position on self-fertilization in experimental populations of Eichhornia paniculata (Pontederiaceae). Functional Ecology 8, 526-535. ( pdf )
  • Barrett, S.C.H., Husband, B.C. & Cole, W.W. (1993). Variation in outcrossing rates in Eichhornia paniculata : temporal changes in populations of contrasting morph structure. Plant Species Biology 8, 141-148. ( pdf )

References

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