Derek Rosenberger

Dr. Rosenberger joined Olivet’s full-time faculty in 2016 and helps coordinate the Zoology program at ONU. He teaches courses in Invertebrate Zoology, Animal Behavior, Ornithology, Conservation Biology, Environmental Science and Tropical and Arctic Field Ecology. His research specialization is in conversation biology and the effects of food, habitat and environment on animal populations and community composition.

Dr. Rosenberger has worked in higher education since 2007 and has worked and taught courses at several universities. He also served as the Director of a creation care study abroad program in Belize, Central America, where he lived for several years. Dr. Rosenberger most enjoys getting students outside into the field and teaches field studies courses each summer, generally to the lowland and montane cloud forests of Cost Rica or the boreal forest and tundra of Alaska.

Many ONU Zoology students have worked in Dr. Rosenberger’s lab on research projects including characterization of bumble bee communities and habitats in the Grand Prairie region, studying bark beetles communities in the critically endangered savannas of Illinois and the montane cloud forests of Costa Rica, and studying the habitat needs of declining woodpeckers. Dr. Rosenberger and his students have won awards for their research at regional and national conferences. They have also undertaken a tall grass prairie habitat restoration on Olivet’s campus seeking to be agents of reconciliation with creation.

Dr. Rosenberger has published numerous papers and presented at many regional, national and international meeting on the effects of new host plants on the behavior and ecophysiology of the mountain pine beetle in the Black Hills of South Dakota, on pedagogy and on the integration of faith and science, in addition to his more recent work. For more information on Dr. Rosenberger’s research, check out the lab website. https://dwrosenberger.wixsite.com/conservation

Outside the university, Dr. Rosenberger enjoys birding and traveling with his family. He also loves reading books to his children, gardening and nature photography.

Dr. Rosenberger is married to Ashley, and they are the parents of three young boys, Isaac, Nehemiah and Levi who love catching frogs, fish, bumble bees, salamanders or anything else they can find on their adventures!