Recent Long-Term Faculty

Andy Zink, Biology
President (B.A., Philosophy and Biology, Bowdoin College; Ph.D., Ecology and Evolution, Cornell University). Andy comes to Deep Springs after 16 years at San Francisco State University, where he was Professor of Biology and Chair of Hiring, Retention, Tenure, and Promotion. In addition to teaching a range of courses and holding several SF State leadership positions, he has received numerous research grants and awards. He has mentored close to 100 undergraduate and graduate students in his lab, the majority of whom are from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. Andy has long been fascinated by the evolution of cooperation and conflict in animal societies. His scientific research focuses on the evolution of social behavior and disease ecology.

Brian Hill, Physics & Astronomy
Herbert Reich Chair of Natural Science 2020-2026 (B.Sc., Physics, University of Washington; Ph.D., Theoretical Physics, Harvard University). Brian came to Deep Springs from the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Saint Mary’s College of California. His Ph.D. and postdoctoral research were in theoretical particle physics, and his research topics included the heavy quark effective field theory and lattice gauge theory. After a long and instructive stint in Silicon Valley, including software development at NeXT and Apple, Brian returned to academia in 2015. At Saint Mary’s, he and his students got the campus observatory involved monitoring exoplanets as part of the TESS follow-up observing program. At Deep Springs, while proposing and teaching courses in physics, astronomy, mathematics, and computer science, he established and enjoys training students to use the Deep Springs observatory where they can get excellent views under the unusually dark and clear skies of Deep Springs Valley, do astrophotography projects, and even take data on transient phenomena, such as supernovae.