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Charles F. Thompson’s Website

Charles F. Thompson
Charles F. Thompson

My collaborators, Scott K. Sakaluk and Pirmin Nietlisbach, and I focus our joint research program in ornithology on experimental approaches to the study of bird behavior, ecology, ecoimmunology, environmental endocrinology, ecophysiology, and evolutionary genetics.


Scott K. Sakaluk and Charles F. Thompson
Pirmin Nietlisbach

Support students studying house wrens

The model system that our students use in the Avian Ecology Laboratory is a local population of the house wren (Troglodytes aedon), a migratory, cavity-nesting songbird.

I received my B.A. and M.S. in zoology and Ph.D. in ecology and physiology from the Department of Zoology, Indiana University (dissertation advisor Val Nolan Jr.). After a post-doctoral research fellowship (advisor Carl W. Helms) and temporary assistant professorship in the Department of Zoology, University of Georgia, and a teaching post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Zoology, Miami University, I joined the faculty of the Department of Biology, State University of New York, Geneseo. I subsequently moved to the Department (now School) of Biological Sciences at Illinois State University. During my time at Illinois State, I have also spent sabbatical leaves at the Ecology Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Lower Hutt, New Zealand; the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology and Wolfson College, University of Oxford; and the Ornithology Group, Division of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, University of Glasgow. To learn more how all this came about, click here. To learn more about the Avian Ecology Laboratory, click on the RESEARCH drop-down menu in the banner at the top of this page.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 2021-Spring-Mackinaw-River-Christine-Poppe-1-876x1024.jpg
Mackinaw Study Area
Spring 2021
(photograph by Christine Poppe)


Prospective graduate students interested in the M.S. or Ph.D. programs in the Avian Ecology Laboratory of the Behavior, Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Section (BEECon) at Illinois State University can learn more by contacting me through the e-mail link below and by clicking on the RESEARCH drop-down menu in the banner at the top of this page. General information on the BEECon M.S. and Ph.D. programs can be found by clicking on the specific graduate program listed under LINKS in the banner at the top of this page.

Dr. Charles F. Thompson
Behavior, Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Section

School of Biological Sciences
Illinois State University
Normal, Illinois 61790-4120

Contact Me

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