BI112 and BI231/232/233

You may call me Zac, Professor Kohl, Instructor Kohl, Mr. Kohl, etc.—any is fine, as long as we treat each other with respect.

I grew up in Beaverton, Oregon, and completed my BS and MS at Portland State University. I began teaching Anatomy and Physiology in 2007 at PSU, later teaching at Clark College and several PCC campuses. In 2011, I moved to Texas and continued teaching primarily A&P, with two notable interruptions: one year in Denmark researching alligator hemoglobin, and one year in Bonaire teaching at a marine ecology research station. I now live near Salem with my two dogs, Bip and Elroy.

My research began as an undergraduate at PSU studying South American killifish whose eggs can survive extreme conditions such as anoxia, dehydration, temperature extremes, and radiation. I then studied amphibians with increasing reliance on lungs for gas exchange, which led to work in developmental cardiovascular physiology in alligators, snapping turtles, and chickens, focusing on changes in blood viscosity during development. I have also contributed to projects on exercise adaptations in cheetahs and CO₂ tolerance in fishes.

More recently, I taught scientific diving and marine conservation biology in Bonaire while researching a globally distributed but poorly understood parasite, Scaphanocephalus expansus, that infects fish and ospreys. I have just returned from a follow-up expedition across several Caribbean islands searching for additional infected fish. I am currently

 Pieter Johnson, from CU Boulder to better understand this parasite. Dr. Johnson has also conducted notable research on amphibian parasites in the Pacific Northwest, which is explained well in the video below.