Dee Denver to lead the Department of Integrative Biology

In addition to evolution and genomics, Denver and his research team also investigate the intersections of biology with Buddhist philosophy and practice; for this research, he has traveled and interacted with Buddhist communities in China, India, Sri Lanka, and Hawai’i. His book The Dharma in DNA is under review with Oxford University Press. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles, including scholarship in highly ranked journals such as Science, Nature, PNAS, Nature Genetics and Genetics. The Denver Lab has been awarded a funding of $7.8M since 2013 by agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other federal and state agencies.

College of Science Dean Roy Haggerty congratulated Denver on his appointment and welcomed him to the College’s leadership team.

“Dee is a highly regarded scholar and educator and I look forward to his leadership of the department. I heartily support his goals to advance excellence in research and learning in the department to prepare the next generation of scientists. I also commend and appreciate his meaningful work in promoting diversity and inclusion,” said Haggerty.

Denver has a distinguished track record of mentoring domestic and international undergraduate students, Ph.D. students and postdoctoral scientists from diverse backgrounds, and helping them launch successful academic, research and industry careers. To date, he has advised six Ph.D. students and four master’s students. Twenty-one diverse undergraduate students have trained in his lab since 2013.

Particularly notable and inspiring are Denver’s passion for and efforts to foster diversity, equity and inclusion at OSU. Beyond building a diverse research team and an inclusive environment in his lab, Denver has played a leading role in enlarging and deepening the College and Integrative Biology’s investments in equity, justice and inclusion. He developed the first Difference, Power, and Discrimination course for the Biology undergraduate degree program. His course – BI 175 Genomes, Identities, and Societies – examines the historical legacy of eugenics instruction and promotion at OSU and investigates the relative roles of genetics and society in shaping social categories such as race and gender.

Denver has also served on the OSU Diversity Council and was Chair of the 2016-17 College of Science Diversity Working Group. Additionally, as a member of the Integrative Biology Executive Committee, he initiated an effort to launch the IB Incubator group, which provided a diverse group of (mostly) junior faculty the opportunity to work together to pilot new inclusive community building activities.

Denver received an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City where his dissertation research provided uniquely direct insights into the DNA mutation process using a nematode (‘roundworm’) model system. He was awarded a NIH fellowship to perform postdoctoral training in theoretical evolutionary genetics at Indiana University, followed by another postdoctoral fellowship at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Evolution and Ecology in New Zealand.

Denver lives in Corvallis, and he is married to Stephanie Swenson, a math and science teacher-mentor with the Corvallis School District. Dee and Stephanie are parents to two amazing teenagers, Amani and Hirut Swenson Denver, who they adopted from Ethiopia in 2007