Nathan H. Lents

Nathan H. Lents is an American scientist, author, and university professor. He has been on the faculty of John Jay College since 2006 and is currently the director of their honors program and the campus Macaulay Honors College program.[1] Lents is noted for his work in cell biology, genetics, and forensic science, as well as his popular science writing and blogging on the evolution of human biology and behavior. Lents is also a visiting faculty member at the University of Lincoln in the U.K.

Early life and education

Nathan H. Lents was born and raised in Decatur, Illinois and graduated second in his class[2] from St. Teresa Catholic High School. He then attended Saint Louis University and graduated summa cum laude with a B.S degree in biology. He moved to Saint Louis University School of Medicine for his doctoral work and graduated with a Ph.D. in Pharmacological and Physiological Sciences in 2004. He completed postdoctoral training in cancer genomics at NYU Medical Center under the direction of Brian David Dynlacht. He then joined the faculty of forensic science at John Jay College and the doctoral faculty of biochemistry at the CUNY Graduate Center. Lents was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2011 and attained the rank of full professor at John Jay College in 2016, his tenth year on the faculty.

Notable research publications

Lents has published research reports in the area of cell and cancer biology, genetics, forensic science, as well as the teaching and learning of science, particularly evolution.[3] Lents has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and the US Department of Education. His early work focused on the cell cycle and cancer biology. His laboratory later discovered new genetic connections between Vitamin D, the transcription factor MZF1, and the CCN gene family.[4] He has also published research forensic biology and toxicology and in 2016, he published work on the skin microbiome of decomposing human cadavers.[5]

Science writing

Lents has written articles for Skeptic Magazine, Psychology Today, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and others.[6] He regularly contributes modules for the Visionlearning science education project. He also maintains The Human Evolution Blog and authors most of its content.[7] He also blogs for Psychology Today under the tagline "Beastly Behavior: How Evolution Shaped Our Minds and Bodies."[8]

Books

In 2016, Lents published his first book, "Not So Different: Finding Human Nature in Animals" with Columbia University Press. The book has received favorable reviews from Publishers Weekly, the Quarterly Review of Biology, Psychology Today, and several others.[9] In 2017, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced acquisition of his second book, a tour through human "design flaws," from genes through anatomy and behavior. Worldwide release is expected in early spring of 2018. He is represented by the Marly Rusoff Literary Agency.

Media

Profess Lents has appeared on television, radio, and news articles commenting about forensic science matters, human evolution, or other science matters. He has appeared on The Today Show,[10] 48 hours, Access Hollywood, The Brian Lehrer Show,[11] the BBC World Service, and has been quoted by the Associated Press, Vice, the New York Times, Scientific American, and others.[12] His blog has been quoted by USA Today, The Daily Mirror, The Dail Mail, The Telegraph, New York Magazine, New York Post, IFL Science, People Magazine, and was mentioned on Live with Kelly.

References

  1. ↑ "Macaulay Honors College at John Jay - John Jay College of Criminal Justice". www.jjay.cuny.edu.
  2. ↑ Nathan H. Lents, Dissertation, 2004
  3. ↑ Google Scholar Profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ajuWegQAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
  4. ↑ Piszczatowski, Richard T.; Rafferty, Brian J.; Rozado, Andre; Parziale, James V.; Lents, Nathan H. (1 November 2015). "Myeloid Zinc Finger 1 (MZF-1) Regulates Expression of the CCN2/CTGF and CCN3/NOV Genes in the Hematopoietic Compartment". Journal of Cellular Physiology. 230 (11): 2634–2639. doi:10.1002/jcp.25021 – via Wiley Online Library.
  5. ↑ Johnson, Hunter R.; Trinidad, Donovan D.; Guzman, Stephania; Khan, Zenab; Parziale, James V.; DeBruyn, Jennifer M.; Lents, Nathan H. (22 December 2016). "A Machine Learning Approach for Using the Postmortem Skin Microbiome to Estimate the Postmortem Interval". PLOS ONE. 11 (12): e0167370. PMC 5179130 Freely accessible. PMID 28005908. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0167370 – via PLoS Journals.
  6. ↑ "Magazine Articles, etc.". 1 February 2016.
  7. ↑ The Human Evolution Blog: www.thehumanevolutionblog.com
  8. ↑ "Beastly Behavior". Psychology Today.
  9. ↑ Links to reviews can be found here: https://thehumanevolutionblog.com/not-so-different/
  10. ↑ "Study: Handbags carry more bacteria than some toilets". TODAY.com.
  11. ↑ "People - Nathan Lents". www.wnyc.org.
  12. ↑ "Media, etc.". 19 January 2015.
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