John was born in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont. and did most of his growing up in Southern Ontario—aside from a one-year stint in the UK (with his family at age 6), where he obtained an Oxford education at the Kidlington School for Infants.
John holds BSc and MSc degrees in biology from the University of Waterloo. After obtaining his masters degree, he spent some time in Waterloo as a lecturer and research assistant and then moved to Winnipeg where he is a candidate for a PhD in zoology at the University of Manitoba. He is also an alumnus of the Embryology course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.
John's research interests are in developmental biology and cell biology. He is particularly interested in egg development throughout the animal kingdom. For John, eggs are the ultimate stem cells, in the sense that they provide not just genes and nutrients but also the microenvironment in which genetic information can be decoded to shape embryonic development. What is it about eggs that makes this possible? How are cells in growing animals instructed to become eggs, and what variations on this process have evolved in different groups of animals?
John also likes to think about the interaction between the natural sciences, philosophy and theology—all of which makes CMU an exciting place for him to work.
When he has time on his hands, John enjoys cycling, canoeing, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, singing, and being entertained by his Senegal parrot.
Favourite quote
" . . . what one really needs is not Nobel laureates but love. How do you think one gets to be a Nobel laureate? Wanting love, that's how. Wanting it so bad one works all the time and ends up a Nobel laureate. It's a consolation prize. What matters is love." George Wald (Nobel prize winner, Physiology/Medicine, 1967)
