NWC Associate Professor of Biology Eric Atkinson has a comfortable office on campus where he spends much of his time teaching in a classroom or lab, but don’t be fooled by the surface layer. You’re just as likely to find him in the wild, leading students who are part of his classes or members of the INBRE program to interesting places across Wyoming where they get the chance to put into practice what Eric teaches.

“I’m proud of our programs across the board at Northwest College, specifically in biology with seven majors in our department,” said Eric, who has taught at NWC since 2009. “But what I’m most proud of, is personally being able to mentor students, and give them opportunities that would be rare at a university for a freshman or sophomore.”

Eric’s career began in 1991 at Chemeketa Community College in Oregon but he was “too itchy” to be in the field and realized he wasn’t ready to teach full-time yet. So instead, a year later, he began working as a freelance ecologist for agencies that included the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management among others. After two years at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania, the world’s first refuge for birds of prey, Eric moved back to Montana in 1997, resumed freelance work, and continues to do that part-time even now as a professor.

The friendships Eric has built across the country are a resource for his students too. Because of those connections, they gain valuable field experience by meeting and working with professionals in a breadth of vocations such as epidemiologists, wolf biologists, disease ecologists and more. They may also assist with research in Yellowstone National Park, the Bighorn Canyon, or areas managed by the BLM and Wyoming Game & Fish. It’s one of the most important aspects of what Eric does, and the lab and field sampling techniques he teaches can be used in just about any area of science a student may ultimately choose.

While raptors have been a focal point of Eric’s career (he has an MS in Raptor Biology from Boise State), he has an affinity for all birds, especially northern shrikes and Harlequin ducks. That would surprise no one, but many may not know his trumpet skills once landed him a spot in Donna Summer’s backup band while an undergrad at Oregon State. He often has to explain to his students who she is, but it’s another example of how there’s more to Eric Atkinson than what’s seen on the surface.