CURRICULUM VITAE - JOHN R. B. LIGHTON
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Nevada at Las Vegas
, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV. 89154-4004, USA1952 Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 25th August.
1970 Matriculated from Westerford High School, Cape Town, South Africa. School delegate to National Science Congress for 1969 and 1970.
1971 Drafted for a few weeks into South African army. Discharged because of allergy to horse serum (it's a long story). Too late to start academic year, so engaged in professional photography.
1972-75 Read for B.A. degree at University of Cape Town. Edited two literary magazines (Aquarius, Review). Participated in anti-apartheid movement by documenting conditions in Black schools. Arrested and interrogated. Received B.A. degree from University of Cape Town.
1976 Received Secondary Teaching Diploma from University of Cape Town.
1977-78 Taught at Manenberg High School in Cape Town; traveled widely in Namaqualand and Namibia, became interested in arid-region biology.
1979-81 Read for B.Sc. degree at University of Cape Town. Awarded class medals and/or first class passes in most subjects. Majored in Zoology and Microbiology. Received B.Sc. degree with distinction in both majors and in the degree as a whole. Awarded UCT Council Scholarship.
1982 Read for B.Sc. Honors degree in Biochemistry at University of Cape Town, specializing in molecular genetics. Attempted the cloning of human Apoprotein E receptor. Degree awarded in first class. Received M. and L. Washkansky Award.
1983 Read for M.Sc. degree at University of Cape Town, specializing in ecological physiology, under Professor G.N. Louw. Chief emphases of thesis were behavioral energetics of tapping communication in beetles, and discontinuous gas exchange in ants. Forced by nature of questions to develop novel computer data acquisition and analysis software. Degree awarded with distinction. Received Purcell Prize for best biology thesis, Special Merit award from South African Council for Scientific Research.
1984-87 Read for Ph.D. degree at the University of California at Los Angeles under Professor G.A. Bartholomew, specializing in comparative and ecological physiology. Received Special Faculty Award, UCLA Gold Shield Distinguished Scholar Award, and Lasiewski Award for outstanding graduate student research. Received Ph.D. degree in June 1987. Awarded Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship by U.S. Department of Energy (one of 9 awarded).
1988-89 Undertook independent research on arthropod energetics and respiratory physiology. Developed methods for acquisition of real-time energetic and respiratory data on animals in the milligram body mass range. Applied these techniques to problems in insect ventilation and energetics. Hollaender fellowship extended. Achieved permanent resident status in the United States. Appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor in UCLA Biology Department.
1990 Invited by Prof. Dr. Rudiger Wehner, head of the biology department of the University of Zurich, to spend 1990 at his department as a Guest Professor, working on ant energetics and respiratory physiology. Collaborated in addition with scientists from Austria, Czechoslovakia and Japan on topics related to ventilation biophysics.
1991 Joined the University of Utah, Biology Department, as Assistant Professor. Actively pursued a research program in insect energetics and gas exchange, partly funded by NSF grant BSR 900625 on the locomotion energetics and gas exchange characteristics of ants. Taught Animal Biology and Comparative Physiology.
1992-1994 Continued research and teaching. Actively pursued research on topics related to first NSF grant (some 20 papers acknowledge that grant.) Became US citizen in July 1993. Awarded David and Lucille Packard Fellowship ($500K, 5 years) in September 1993, as well as second NSF grant. Also awarded NIH grant for studying tick respiratory physiology in August 1994 (grant RO1AI 36345-01 $250K, 3 years).
1995-1996 When University of Utah administrators made my employment contingent upon concealment of what law enforcement investigators have called "evidence of theft and insurance fraud," I resigned my post in August 1995. I then joined the University of Nevada, Las Vegas as a visiting associate professor. Primary teaching duty was Human Anatomy & Physiology. Later focused efforts more on the growth of Sable Systems International [http://www.sablesys.com], a company I co-founded in 1987, which manufactures instrumentation for academic and industrial research. Sable Systems designs and manufactures microprocessor-based, high precision instruments that measure, among other things, gas quantities and exchange dynamics in biological and physical systems as well as peripherals for environmental monitoring.
I retained my UNLV affiliation and there continued my program of basic research in insect ventilation. In addition my lab developed significant new research programs in insect flight metabolism, the phylogeny of ventilatory control in arthropods, water-energy relationships in xeric arthopods, and the biophysics of gas exchange in tracheate arthropods. External collaborators include Michael Dickinson (Drosophila bioenergetics), Raul Suarez (metabolic physiology), Jon Harrison (insect respiratory physiology), Flavio Roches (Würzburg; ant physiology), Erich Gnaiger (Innsbruck: biological energetics), Paul Watson (behavioral physiology), Jim McIver and Jennifer Fewell (ant foraging energetics), Bernd Heinrich (evolution of insect flight), Phillip Brownell (Scorpion metabolism), Pablo Schilman (gas exchange in tracheal systems), and others.
1997-2000 Funded by NSF grant BSR 9603873, and my Packard Fellowship, my research focus in recent years has been on the same interests noted in 1995-1996 with a few additions. Metabolic capacities under hypoxic conditions, specifically that of the leaf cutter ant has been the subject of new research with collaborator, Flavio Roces. My interests have also extended into the thermal biology of ants and other insects and the biochemical implications of their physiological perameters. In this there has been some collaboration with Martin Feder. Work on Mojave desert scorpions with Phillip Brownell led to a comprehensive cross taxa study spanning three continents and stimulating some provocative questions. I have represented UNLV in symposia at various congresses over this time span including the Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry conference in Kruger Park, South Africa and the Society for Experimental Biologists at Cambridge, UK. Throughout these recent years much of my creative effort has been devoted to the development of innovative data acquisition instrumentation and synchronizable systems.
2001-2008 My time was mostly spent moving Sable Systems International forward with the help of my wonderful wife and friend, Robbin Turner. I've been involved with some research but not as much as I'd like to. That said, Sable Systems is thriving and exerting a positive influence in hundreds of laboratories world-wide.