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[Press Release] GIST College Winter Courses taught by Caltech Professor Rob Phillips

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  • REG_DATE : 2016.01.22
  • HIT : 902

GIST College Winter Courses taught by Caltech Professor Rob Phillips

"Evolutionary Biology" course will take a field expedition to New Zealand

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GIST President Seung Hyeon Moon (left) visits the "Physical Biology of the Cell" course
that is being taught by Caltech Professor Rob Phillips (right).

The Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) is excited to have Professor Rob Phillips, the eminent Fred and Nancy Morris Professor of Biophysics and Biology at the California Institute of Science and Technology (Caltech), teach two intensive undergraduate biology courses at GIST College during the 2016 Winter Session.

From January 11, 2016, to February 1, 2016, Professor Rob Phillips and his five teaching assistants from Caltech (Dr. Heun Jin Lee, Stephanie Barnes, Manuel Razo, Griffin Chure, and Nathan Belliveau) will be conducting two courses at GIST College: "Physical Biology of the Cell" and "Evolutionary Biology with Field Expedition."

The 22 GIST College students enrolled in the "Evolutionary Biology with Field Expedition" course will be travelling to New Zealand from January 23, 2016, to February 1, 2019, to explore and learn about biological organisms, vicariance, and ecosystems within New Zealand"s pristine natural habitats while performing experimental studies. The unique biological ecosystems to be visited by the GIST field expedition include: Canterbury Plains, Arthur"s Pass, Fox Glacier, Lake Matheson, Munro Beach, Queenstown, and Milford Sound. This is the first time that the course is going to New Zealand as the previous two expeditions for the "Evolutionary Biology" course went to Lombok, Indonesia.

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GIST College students enrolled in the "Evolutionary Biology" course will be participating in a nine-day field expedition to New Zealand starting on January 23, 2016. Professor Rob Phillips (center) is pictured with GIST College Dean Do-Kyeong Ko (first left) and his collaborator Professor Steve Cho (second left).

Professor Phillips has been teaching summer/winter courses at GIST College for the past five years in close partnership with his collaborator, Professor Steve Cho of GIST College, who is also responsible for coordinating the courses. Professor Phillips enjoys returning to teach at GIST College because of the enthusiastic and capable students that he finds here at GIST, and Professor Cho enjoys giving his undergraduate students the unique opportunity to learn from a passionate and knowledgeable biologist like Professor Phillips.

As Professor Cho commented, "No other college or university in Korea invests as much as GIST to provide their undergraduate students with such an unparalleled and exceptional educational experience as these courses to nurture the minds of budding, young scientists."

Professor Phillips also said, "Because the critical importance of field work has long been recognized by biologists, schools in the United States—including Caltech—have opened courses whose core component also includes having students participate in field research. GIST"s field expedition course to New Zealand is a new and exciting way for GIST students to learn about evolutionary biology."

GIST President Seung Hyeon Moon underscored this point by saying, "This intensive winter course and field expedition to New Zealand with Caltech Professor Rob Phillips is a unique educational program at GIST College that instills all of the best virtues of a liberal arts education into our students. Developing such courses at GIST will give our students a distinct advantage in the increasingly competitive world of science."