About Heather Hallen-Adams:
I grew up in St. Paul, MN. I received my BS from the University of Minnesota and my PhD (in Botany and Plant Pathology, and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior) from Michigan State University, where I researched poisonous mushrooms, and fungi that produce toxins in food (mycotoxins). I knit, and keep lizards (chameleons and geckos).
I grew up in St. Paul, MN. I received my BS from the University of Minnesota and my PhD (in Botany and Plant Pathology, and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, and Behavior) from Michigan State University, where I researched poisonous mushrooms, and fungi that produce toxins in food (mycotoxins). I knit, and keep lizards (chameleons and geckos).
What is your position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln?
Assistant Professor of Practice
What drew you to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln?
There was an opening for somebody with my background (in food and fungi). Also, UNL is comparable in many ways to U of MN and MSU (land grant university, major research university, [now] Big Ten), so I was familiar with and comfortable in the environment. I love the city of Lincoln, and can find pretty much everything I would want here.
What aspect of working in an educational setting do you enjoy the most?
The variety! I may teach the same class year to year, or different sections of the same class in one semester, but the students and class dynamics are always going to be different, and science keeps advancing, so there are always new things to learn and incorporate in the classes.
What is your typical day like?
Varies greatly depending on the semester and time of year, and will be very different starting Fall of 2018, when 55 students join us from our partner university, NWAFU, in northwestern China for their senior year. I currently might teach one lecture or one three hour lab on a given day, and have papers / lab reports / exams / quizzes to grade once a week. Year round, I am involved in writing and editing papers (my own, my students', or papers I am asked to review by journals), interacting with graduate students on their research, some small degree of lab work that I do myself, helping organize our collaboration with NWAFU, and (during warmer months) identifying mushrooms for the Nebraska Poison Center.
What is something that most people don't know about you?
Everybody knows about the knitting and lizards... I am a reasonably skilled pen and ink artist, and my parents were both quite artistic as well.
What is your life like outside of work?
Reading, knitting, lizarding... I live in the Professors' Row neighborhood (off East Campus; used to be very convenient to work), and it's a great neighborhood where everybody knows each other and does things together. I am active in a couple of the neighborhood organizations. I'm trying to get back in to running after a couple of joint surgeries since I came to UNL, and ran my first 5k in several years around Thanksgiving.