Rate My Professor Mike Henshaw

Michael Henshaw is an Associate Professor of Biology in the Department of Biology at Grand Valley State University, where he joined the faculty in Fall 2007 as an Assistant Professor of Biology. A Grand Rapids area native, he earned a BS in Biology from Grand Valley State University in 1995, followed by an MA in 1998 and a PhD in 2000 in Ecology and Evolution from Rice University. He then served as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and subsequently at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, until 2004. From 2004 to 2007, Henshaw was an Assistant Professor of Biology at McKendree College before returning to Grand Valley State University.

Henshaw is a behavioral ecologist investigating the interface of ecology, evolution, genetics, and behavior, particularly cooperative groups in social insects including ants, bees, and wasps. His research employs field studies, behavioral observations, and molecular data to examine parentage and mating systems, population genetics, evolutionary relationships among organisms, and molecular evolution. Key publications include "kingroup: a program for pedigree relationship reconstruction and kin group assignments using genetic markers" (Konovalov, Manning, and Henshaw, Molecular Ecology Notes, 2004); "The evolution of queen number and queen control in a social insect" (Queller et al., Nature, 2000); "Brain transcriptomic analysis in paper wasps identifies genes associated with behaviour across social insect lineages" (Toth et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 2010); "A diapause pathway underlies the gyne phenotype in Polistes wasps, revealing an evolutionary route to caste-containing insect societies" (Hunt et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007); and "Differential gene expression and protein abundance evince ontogenetic bias toward castes in a primitively eusocial wasp" (Hunt et al., PLoS One, 2010). He has secured grants such as a Grant-in-Aid for primer development in Ectatomma ruidum and received service awards from the university. Henshaw has presented research on population genetics of Polistes metricus revealing genetic variation associated with climate and delivered public lectures on kin selection using omics approaches.