L. Michael Romero
professor, biology

Current Research: Using neuroscience, physiology, and ecology—in the lab and in the field—to learn about stress in vertebrates, specifically how levels of stress-related hormones released in an animal are barometers for how well it is coping with its environment; currently focused on what role those hormones play in survival.

Why Tufts: "It's rare to find a department where faculty members co-author papers the way we do here. That's because it's rare to find a biology department with such a wide range of faculty as we have—including a physiologist, plant scientist, ecologist, neurobiologist, molecular biologist, geneticist, conservation biologist, and animal behaviorist. Tufts also is unusual in the closeness graduate students have with their advisers; most of our biology labs have only two or three graduate students in them."