I'm a professor in the Biological Sciences Department at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, California.  I teach courses in genetics and botany. I advise students who want to become science teachers. My research focuses on the genetics of polyploid plants (i.e. I study mutant broccoli). 

My family subscribed to The New Yorker when I was young and I became familiar with single-panel cartoons.  My favorite cartoonists are George Booth and Roz Chast.  (I'm still a New Yorker subscriber and look forward to a new batch of cartoons each week.)

My earliest cartoon influence was Peanuts and Charles Schultz.  My childhood Peanuts collection included 152 books...mostly purchased at library sales and garage sales.  Here's the peanuts cartoon that was published on my birthday in 1969.

I started drawing biology cartoons during graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. You can see a large archive of my lab-related cartoons at Promega's CartoonLab.

I sold my first cartoon to The New Yorker in April, 2021.

I draw the cartoons by hand with a dip pen. For black and white cartoons I add ink wash, pencil and cross-hatching over my ink drawing. For color cartoons, I scan the ink drawing then add the color using Photoshop.

News

I was a guest on the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest Podast, (Episode 103, 2023)

Profile in Grow Magazine (University of Wisconsin), 2022

Inktober Interview (Cal Poly News, 2020)