Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Joshua Hall
This month, the Biology Department faculty spotlight shines on Assistant Professor
Dr. Joshua Hall, vertebrate physiological ecologist and advisor to the student investigators
conducting research in his Developmental Ecophysiology (Devo Eco) Lab. Dr. Hall's
research seeks to understand how human-caused environmental changes impact reproduction
and embryo development in certain wildlife.
A major area of focus is how shifts in temperature, driven by urban heat islands and climate warming, affect reproduction and embryo development of ectotherms (i.e. "cold-blooded" animals) because their physiology is directly linked to environmental temperature. Because embryos are particularly sensitive to environmental disturbance, these changes can have significant consequences. Dr. Hall's students combine field observations of nests and controlled laboratory experiments that mimic natural environments to better understand how global changes affect critical processes, such as cardiovascular development and physiology, tissue growth, and overall health of developing embryos and reproducing females. By looking at these impacts, this research aims to shed light on how these animals will respond to future environmental challenges and contribute to a better understanding of how human activities are changing our world.
Dr. Hall joined the Biology Department at TN Tech in 2021, but his fascination with the natural world has been life-long. “I spent my childhood chasing lizards over the hills of West Tennessee,” he says. After earning Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Biology at Union and Mississippi State Universities, respectively, he returned home to West Tennessee and took on a new role as a public high school science teacher. In 2015, after teaching for five years in the same high school he himself attended, he moved to Alabama to pursue his PhD in Biological Sciences at Auburn University in support of his long-term goal: being a university-level science educator, researcher, and mentor. “And now I am back in Tennessee, chasing lizards again.”