Katie Nickles
Assistant Teaching Professor in Biological Sciences
Research and teaching interests in organismal biology, marine biology, and underwater research
My graduate work was focused on the development of the lateral line system in coral reef fishes. My work was the first to describe the ontogeny of the lateral line system for any gobiiform fish and was the first to examine the correlation between lateral line morphology and microhabitat/ecological roles in these fish. As a scientific research diver, I have also worked on a diversity of projects including coral restoration, marine disease ecology, offshore wind environmental impact assessments, remote sampling of Narragansett Bay, American eel migration surveys, and more. If the research involves marine biology or being in the water, I am excited to be involved!
I teach the laboratory component for many introductory and upper level organismal courses including in Introduction to Organismal Biology, Environmental Horticulture, Human Biology, Marine Biology, and Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of Vertebrates.
Outside of Wellesley, I love scuba diving, soccer, hiking, cooking, eating good food, board games, pottery, and collecting far too many house plants.
Education
- B.S., University of Rhode Island
- M.S., University of Rhode Island
Current and upcoming courses
Comparative Physiology and Anatomy of Vertebrates with Laboratory
BISC203
How do animals work? This course addresses the structure, systems of physiology, and energetics of vertebrate animals, with comparisons of the adaptations of animals of different thermal regime, body size, lifestyle, and environment throughout vertebrate evolutionary history. The laboratories include projects in diversity, digestion, muscle energetics, study of comparative anatomy through dissections of vertebrate specimens, and the use of statistics and graphing.
This course has a required co-requisite laboratory - BISC 203L.