Alex is a professor and chair of the Department of Biology at Hampden-Sydney College, a small liberal arts college in Virginia, where he teaches anatomy, physiology, evolution, and ecology. He earned a BS in zoology from Duke University and an AM and PhD in evolutionary biology from Harvard University, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Barrow, AK, with the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management. In 2013 he was a visiting professor at UBC in Vancouver. His research focuses on the functional morphology and biomechanics of marine mammals, especially of the Arctic, and he is currently studying the material properties and fluid dynamics of the oral baleen filter of humpback and other mysticete whales for a project in biomimicry (creating new technology and industrial applications from the study of design in nature). He is working with a team of Dutch engineers to create 3D printed models of the baleen filter for virtual and physical flow testing. He is broadly interested in science education and conducts outreach programs for people of all ages on topics ranging from evolution and the human genome project to rising sea levels, which he experienced as a Fulbright Scholar in the Indian Ocean in Maldives. He is working on a book about marine conservation and how people of different cultures and occupations relate to the sea and who its resources belong to. (April 2014) KCAW INTERVIEW