Joel H. Benington received his BA from St. John�s College in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1985 and his PhD in biology from Stanford University in 1992. He performed postdoctoral research at the University of Los Angeles and Stanford University until 1996. Since then, he has been a member of the Biology faculty of St. Bonaventure University, where he is currently Professor of Biology and Director of the Bioinformatics and Health and Society programs. He has twice served as Chair of the Department of Biology. During his entire time at St. Bonaventure University, he has taught one or both semesters of the general biology sequence for first-year life science majors. He also teaches upper-level Neurobiology, Genomics, and Evolution courses and has led a variety of seminar courses in the university�s Honors Program. He has published his research in journals such as Progress in Neurobiology, Brain Research, The American Journal of Physiology, and The Scientist. In addition to laboratory research, he has published hypotheses concerning the role of sleep in brain energy metabolism, the functional relationship between REM sleep and non-REM sleep, and connections between sleep and learning. Joel�s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, and he has served as Principal Investigator of a National Grid grant to support K-12 STEM education in Cattaraugus County, New York.
