Michael Dolan’s main research interests are the cell biology and taxonomy of the symbiotic protists in the hindguts of wood-feeding termites and Cryptocercus. These anaerobic microbes are important for the study of cell evolution, endosymbiosis and the speciation of asexual protists. In addition to his work in Lynn Margulis’s lab at UMASS, Dolan is a Research Associate in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York where he is organizing the Hans Ris collection and the Cleveland-Kirby Collection of termite and Cryptocercus protists, and creating a global database of these insect symbionts in collaboration with Susan Perkins, David Grimaldi and Kumar Krishna.
In addition to his research Dolan is a lecturer in the Department of Biology (Biol 105 – Biology of Social Issues). He is also the UMASS- Amherst representative to the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium, and administers the NASA Planetary Biology Internships, an educational program of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Through this program graduate students from around the world are funded to work during June-August at NASA facilities and with NASA-funded scientists in universities in the USA. The application deadline for this program is March 1 each year.
