Dr. Sher Hendrickson-Lambert, assistant professor of biology, spent part of her summer vacation teaching conservation genetics at the Southern African Wildlife College in South Africa.
While in South Africa, she said her “focus was teaching grad students and field people new methods in genomics and statistics when they could apply to conversation.”
At the college, she worked with Cheetah Conservation Fund members, as well as rhinoceros conservationists and many international students. As part of her study, Dr. Hendrickson-Lambert and her research team brought down grown rhinoceros with a tranquilizer that was shot from a helicopter in order to “obtain genetic samples as well as grow immortalized cell lines for further studies.” Her team did the same with elephants.
Dr. Hendrickson-Lambert began her career at Shepherd in 2012 as an adjunct professor, teaching Introduction to Biology and other lower level courses. She was then hired as an assistant professor. Prior to teaching at Shepherd, she worked for the National Institute of Health for nine years. While there, she studied “how an individual’s genetics can determine how fast the HIV virus progresses to AIDS.”
She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside while conducting bio-molecular research on captive tiger population genetics. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and while there, studied the evolution and conservation genetics of Andean condors. She traveled to the Andes to gather in-field statistics and genetic samples for her research.
During the fall semester, Dr. Hendrickson-Lambert is teaching General Biological Science and Evolution along with their respective labs.