Dennis Holley

Dennis Holley is a biologist to the core, he always has been, and he always will be. His interest in all things living is broad and generic. If it’s a living creature—plant, animal, or microbe—he finds it fascinating. How did he get this way? Understanding parents and a nurturing habitat are to blame. He spent many happy hours in his youth in and around a nearby pond and stream, raising tadpoles, white mice, and pigeons while a cheap Christmas-gift microscope opened up an unseen world of protists and bacteria expanding his respect and curiosity for all things biological.

Holley eagerly devoured every biology course he could take in college, and although he flirted for a time with the idea of a career in marine biology, he eventually became an educator. For nearly forty years, high schools and universities have actually paid him for doing what he loves—teaching biology, and writing all sorts of science curriculum materials from lab manuals to textbooks. As a teacher and writer of things biological, he believes it is his responsibility not only to inform but also infuse students and readers with a sense of wonder and awe for all the amazing realms of life found on this planet. GENERAL BIOLOGY I: Molecules, Cells and Genes and GENERAL BIOLOGY II: Organisms and Ecology were designed and written with this philosophy uppermost in mind.