Founded in 1846, Beloit is Wisconsin’s oldest college


50 majors, 35 minors, and self-design options offered


Nationally recognized for its academic quality, affordability, service programs, and international focus


One of the “Colleges that Change Lives”


Learn More


John R. Jungck

John R. Jungck

Principal Investigator, BEDROCK.
Principal Investigator, The BioQUEST Project
Editor, The BioQUEST Library
Mead Chair of the Sciences
and Professor of Biology
Biology Department
Beloit College, Beloit, WI

Dr. Jungck has specialized in mathematical molecular evolution, history and philosophy of biology, and science education reform. In 1986, he co-founded the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium, a national consortium of college and university biology educators devoted to curricular reform across the nation. It promotes quantitative, open-ended problem solving, collaborative learning, peer review, research, and civic engagement/social responsibility. He is a Fulbright Scholar (Thailand), a Mina Shaughnessy Scholar, a Fellow of the National Institute of Science Education, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Projects:

BioQUEST

Bedrock

The BEDROCK initiative enhances, expands, and empowers a national community of bioinformatics educators. Our goals are achieved through a series of faculty development workshops around the country, recruiting and supporting a group of innovative faculty to implement and disseminate bioinformatics education materials, and publishing resources for bioinformatics education. Finally, we are building a networked collaboratory environment for developing and sharing bioinformatics education approaches.

Thailand Research Workshops

1997: Computational Molecular Biology and Molecular Bioinformatics

2000: Computational Molecular Biology and Molecular Bioinformatics II

2003: Computational Molecular Biology and Molecular Bioinformatics III

The BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium actively supports educators interested in the reform of undergraduate biology and engages in the collaborative development of curricula. BioQUEST (Quality Undergraduate Education Simulations and Tools in Biology) encourages the use of simulations, databases, and tools to construct learning environments where students are able to engage in activities like those of practicing scientists.

History of BioQUEST

BioQUEST Calendar

BENZER
Deletion Mapping Of Genetic "Fine Structure": Supplementing Ad Hoc Problem Solving Approaches With Algorithms And Heuristics by John R. Jungck, Dept. of Biology, Beloit College, Beloit, WI. and Vince Streif, Computer Center, University of Wisconsin-Eau Clair, Eau Claire, WI.

Editorial Work (current and past)

Publications

Microbes CountMicrobes Count! is a collection of computer-based investigations for the undergraduate microbiology laboratory. The simulations, case-studies, and computational models in Microbes Count! can be used to supplement standard textbooks throughout the undergraduate curriculum.

The 40 lab investigations in the book utilize a variety of software and web-based resources, many of which are drawn from the peer-reviewed BioQUEST Library of computer-based curricular materials. The accompanying CD includes all of the software and other resources used in the book, as well as additional data sets, bibliographies, supplemental activities, and software manuals.

A number of the activities were developed in collaboration with undergraduate faculty at the 2001 BioQUEST Summer Workshop.

Jungck, JR, Fass, MF, Stanley, ES, Microbes Count: Problem Posing, Problem Solving and Peer Persuasion in Microbiology, ASM Press, 2003

Ten Equations that Changed Biology, Bioscene 23(1):11-36, 1997

Ignorance, Error and Chaos, Japanese Journal of Contemporary Philosophy or Modern Thought, 24(11): 363-376, 1996

Qualitative and Quantitative Pedigree Analysis: Graph Theory, Computer Software, and Case Studies, Bioscene, 21(1):12-22, 1995

Ten Questions for Creationist Policy Makers, Bioscene, 17(1):33, 1991

Deletion Mapping of Genetic "Fine Structure": Supplementing Ad Hoc Problem Solving Approaches with Algorithms and Heuristics, Bioscene, 12(1):13-27,1986

Articles available at PubMed

Articles Featuring Dr. Jungck and BioQUEST

Evolutionary Biology Instruction -- What students gain from learning through inquiry (pdf) Principled Practice In Mathematics & Science Education, the NCISLA newsletterr, Winter 2002

College Student Meets Electron Man: Initial panic turns to insight as students embrace online learning HHMI Bulletin, September 2001, pages 22-25.

Setting Science Standards: Preparing the New Era, a Beloit College Magazine cover story, Fall/Winter 1998

Science Educators Tour Computerized Biology Class, HHMI Bulletin, May 1995

John Jungck: The Godfather of Virtual Bio and Genetics Labs, Science, 4 Nov 1994, Vol. 266, pg. 888

Beyond Bio 101: The Transformation of Undergraduate Biology Education A report from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Software

BENZER: An Interval Graph Tool for Deletion Mapping, Restriction Mapping, Complementation Mapping, Sequencing, and Food Web Analysis co-authored with Vince Streif, Ivica Ceraj, and Stephen J. Everse BENZER can be used to generate problem sets, to interactively solve problems from actual biological experiments by heuristic matrix manipulation, and to automatically solve problems with a built-in algorithm that recognizes incompatibilities in datasets.

BIRDD: Beagle Investigations Return with Darwinian Data (The Darwin’s Finch Data Resource) co-authored with Frank Price, Sam Donovan, and Jim Stewart BIRDD is a rich collection of primary scientific data and supporting materials about the Galápagos islands and Darwin’s finches including information ranging from island names, maps, and weather, to summaries of taxonomy, song recordings, DNA sequences, and measurements of more than 650 specimens.

GCK (Genetics Construction Kit) co-authored with John N. Calley Genetics Construction Kit is a simulation of a classic Mendelian genetics laboratory. It provides you with a set of organisms with unknown patterns of inheritance, and gives you the tools to design and perform an experimental strategy to discover these inheritance patterns.

µGCK (Microbial Genetics Construction Kit) co-authored with John N. Calley Microbial Genetics Construction Kit is a simulation of a microbial genetics laboratory. It provides you with a set of unknown bacteria on a petri plate or in a test tube. You can then investigate many of the characteristics of these bacteria using tools similar to those used in a real laboratory.

Inherit co-authored with Ben Jones and Patti Soderberg Inherit is a pedigree drawing and analysis tool that can be used in educational, clinical, and research settings. This software enables you to explore questions regarding the role of inheritance in human traits and syndromes. It allows you to enter a variety of kinds of data for the members of a pedigree, and to change the display to reflect the presence or absence of combinations of medical symptoms, background information, your own diagnoses, or any type of data you care to enter.

Courses

Evolution An exploration of descent with modification and the evolutionary history of life on earth. The history and philosophy of evolutionary theory, the genetic basis of microevolution, contemporary hypotheses of speciation, and phylogenetic systematics comprise the major course material. Three lecture-discussion class periods and one laboratory period per week. Occasional Saturday field trips required. (WL) Offered spring 2010. Prerequisite: one of the following: Biology 289 or Anthropology 120, 324, or Geology 210 or consent of instructor.

Genetics Mendelian, population, quantitative, and molecular genetics are developed through a problemsolving approach. Social controversies surrounding such items as genetic counseling, domestic breeding of crops, genetic engineering, mutagenic substances in our environment, and natural selection will be discussed. Three lecture- discussion class periods and one laboratory period per week. (WL) Offered each fall. Prerequisite: Biology 247 or consent of instructor.es, one computer session, one problem session, and one laboratory period per week.

Cellular and Developmental Biology Cells are the fundamental units of life. Cellular mechanisms of metabolism and regulation, motility, cytoarchitectural dynamics, pattern formation, morphogenesis, information transfer, permeability, heat regulation, and differences among animal, bacterial, fungal, plant, and protozoan cells will be explored. Laboratory projects emphasize synthesis of experimental, theoretical, and modeling approaches to cellular and developmental biology; digital video microscopy and quantitative image analysis; building a scientific apparatus; and generating original research. Four hours of lecture-discussion and one laboratory period per week. (WL) Offered spring 2011. Prerequisite: one collegelevel biology or chemistry course, or consent of instructor. Recommended: one college- level mathematics course.

Evolutionary Bioinformatics This course was offered for the first time in Spring 2004 and will be offered again in the future.

East:West (a First Year Initiative Seminar co-taught with John Rosenwald) What did Frank Lloyd Wright learn from Japanese aesthetics? How did Canadian nationalism affect Canadian Joy Kogawa during World War II? How did Maya Lin capture a sense of both grief and pride in the Vietnam War Memorial and in her Southern Poverty Law Center Civil Rights Memorial? What did Peter Matthiessen discover about Buddhism, environmentalism, and himself during his trek across the Himalayas? Did Sun Li own his water buffalo or did the water buffalo own him? What do Chinese landscape painters have in common with contemporary fractal geometers? Why was formal "Fuzzy Logic" more easily adopted in Japan and China than in the USA? How does contemporary Indian dance fuse the aesthetics of East and West, classicism and modernism? In this seminar, we will focus on the interaction of Western and Eastern cultures in a number of texts (Kogawa's Obasan, Lin's Boundaries, Tao-te Ching, The Sonnets to Orpheus, Fuzzy Logic, Qiu Xiaolong's Death of a Red Heroine, poetry of Bei Dao, and James Elkins's The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing) and topics (biogeography, art and architectural history, the excluded middle, cyclic and linear time). Our materials will be maps, buildings, mountains, words, genes, dances, paintings-all reveal how our visions stem from our cultural backgrounds. In addition to substantial work in writing, reading, speaking, and listening, we will attempt to learn how a combination of international approaches can help first-year students make the transition to the complex academic and social environment called college.

Special Projects with Students

Art of Mathematical Biology: DNA Topology Art of Mathematical Biology DNA Topology Srebrenka Robic 1997

Knotty DNA Knotty DNA Anna Farbotko 2003

zdravko bark Voronoi Diagrams in Biology Zdravko Jeremic 2001

shell Shell Morphology Adam Robics 1995

seeds Seeds Giancarlo Schrementi 2001

sand dolar Sand Dollars Vanja Klepac 1998

Genomics and Public Policy -- Emily Kaltenbach and Colette Bina, '97

Students' Papers

A Fractal Model of Leaf Growth -- Jon Jay Obernark and Joan Kelly Bioscene, 14(2):16-26, 1988

Strobomicroscopy: A Quantitative, Noninvasive Biophysics Lab -- Juli Zanocco, Stephen Everse, and Ian Caldicott Bioscene, 14(1):24-30, 1988

Memberships/Service

Present:

Past

Popular Talks

  • 10 Equations That Changed Biology (And That Should Change Biology Education)
  • Reading The Book Of Life: How Bioinformatics Makes Sense of Molecular Messages
  • Genetic Codes as Codes: Towards a Theoretical Basis for Bioinformatics
  • Topological Toys, Tinkering Thinking: Knot Theory and DNA
  • Escherian Esthetics of Voronoi Polygons and Polyhedra: How to Fold a Protein and Scale Independence in Irregular Biological Patterns
  • Patterns In Nature
  • Relationships: Graph Theory For Biologists
  • Heredity, Health and Humanity
  • Darwin: Positivist or Theist

Email: John Jungck