About Rob Dunn

Rob Dunn is a biologist and writer in the Department of Applied Ecology at North Carolina State University. Central to all of his work is the sense that big discoveries lurk not only in faraway tropical forests, but also in our backyards and even bedrooms. The unknown is large and wonderful and Dunn and his collaborators, students, and postdocs love to spend their days in it.

The First National Inventory of All Household Life (on a swab)

In dust one can record the actions of storms, the wearing of mountains, the consequences of industrialization. The study of dust has a long history. [...]

By |2016-11-22T13:46:44-05:00August 25th, 2015|

Help us Solve The Mystery of the Danish Underpants

Recently, Pernille Hjort from the Danish Museum of Natural History visited us in Raleigh to exchange ideas about new projects in public science. It was an [...]

By |2016-11-22T13:46:44-05:00May 4th, 2015|

On Joining the Lab (Boat)

Some people go from early life to death focused on one mystery. This approach, I am told, can be very satisfying. One of my mentors, [...]

By |2016-11-22T13:46:44-05:00April 26th, 2015|

The Bear

I was staying in a one, room shack beside a river. The river, a majestic river, reminded me of the sound of a washing machine. My [...]

By |2015-04-14T16:12:22-04:00April 13th, 2015|

Could there be 200 million species on Earth?

Recently, one of my colleagues, Brian Brown, found thirty new species of flies in urban Los Angeles. Species not yet named. Species not yet studied. [...]

By |2016-11-22T13:46:44-05:00April 13th, 2015|

Life at the Margins

Some discoveries and innovations come from big labs funded incredibly well by governments in affluent countries. They come from those in the mainstream, freighters plowing [...]

By |2016-11-22T13:46:46-05:00February 19th, 2015|

The Most Important Map You Will Ever See

and other stories of the biogeography of pathogens Among the greatest of the unwinnable debates among academics is the place of humans in nature. It [...]

By |2016-11-22T13:46:53-05:00November 25th, 2014|
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