Art Harris has diverse responsibilities. He is Director of the Laboratory for Environmental Biology. The Laboratory commonly is known as the LEB and is part of the research division of the Centennial Museum. Art also acts as Curator of Mammals and as Curator of Vertebrate Paleobiology for the LEB. He is responsible for computerization and maintenance of the Centennial Museum's collection databases and acts as webmaster for the Museum. He also is a Professor of Biological Sciences, teaching such courses as Evolutionary Theory, Natural History of Birds and Mammals, and Bioarchaeology.
Art received his B.A. (Biology), M.S. (Zoology), and Ph.D. (Vertebrate Zoology with a minor in Geochronology) degrees from the University of New Mexico, with additional coursework at the University of Arizona. He taught for 2 years at Fort Hays Kansas State College (now Fort Hays University) before coming to Texas Western College (now the University of Texas at El Paso) in 1965. He has taught about 25 different courses, ranging from Systematic Botany to Biology of the Pleistocene.
Although originally trained primarily as a mammalogist, his research has been mostly in vertebrate paleontology in recent years, specializing in late Pleistocene cave faunas of the Southwest. Bioarchaeology remains an interest and he teaches an undergraduate course in that subject. His published research includes Vertebrate Pleistocene Paleoecology of the West and coauthorship of the Mammals of New Mexico.
In recent years, a portion of his attention has gone to informal education, with participation in various activities at the Centennial Museum and a sporatic program of talks and
tours of research facilities for school children and other groups at the LEB.
Telephone: (915) 747-6835, 747-6895
Fax: (915)747-5808
e-mail: aharris@mail.utep.edu
