Rate My Professor Sarah DuRant

Sarah DuRant is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She received her BS in biology with a minor in chemistry from the University of South Carolina. She earned her MS in 2006 and PhD in 2011 from Virginia Tech in the laboratory of William A. Hopkins. Her master's research examined sublethal effects of pesticides on locomotor performance and energy allocation in western fence lizards. Her doctoral dissertation investigated maternal effects, including incubation temperature influences on embryonic energy expenditure, offspring immunocompetence, thermoregulation, and steroid allocation into eggs affecting growth and reproduction in wood ducks. After her PhD, she completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at Tufts University with Michael Romero. Before joining the University of Arkansas as an Assistant Professor in 2018, she held a faculty position for 3.5 years at Oklahoma State University focusing on physiological ecology, bioenergetics, and parental effects.

DuRant's research explores physiological responses of wildlife to environmental stimuli, with emphasis on parental effects, disease ecology, life history theory, and temperature impacts in birds. Her lab studies avian systems such as Eastern Bluebirds and domestic canaries to assess how parental disease history shapes offspring immune phenotypes and transmission dynamics in mycoplasmal conjunctivitis. She received the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Award in 2020, a five-year $1.5 million grant investigating disease effects on avian parental behaviors and offspring disease responses. Additional honors include the Connor Faculty Fellowship in 2020, recognition as an Extraordinary Woman by the Chancellor's Commission on Women in 2019, and an NSF Professional Awareness, Advancement, and Development Faculty Fellowship in 2017. Notable publications comprise "Ecological, evolutionary, and conservation implications of incubation temperature-dependent phenotypes in birds" (Biological Reviews, 2013), "Slight differences in incubation temperature affect early growth and stress endocrinology of wood duck ducklings" (Journal of Experimental Biology, 2010), "Incubation temperature affects multiple measures of immunocompetence in young wood ducks" (Biology Letters, 2012), and "Incubation temperature as a constraint on clutch size evolution" (Functional Ecology, 2021). She coauthored an opinion piece, "How to Tackle a Childcare-Conference Conundrum," in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2018).