The Henderson State University Cave Biology Research Team will be the featured presenter at this year’s Kane Allen Memorial Lecture at the Arkansas School for Mathematics, Sciences and the Arts at 6 p.m. March 15.
Henderson State’s Cave Biology Research Team has been researching the ecology of caves since 2011. Initially concentrating on undeveloped recesses deep within Blanchard Springs Caverns in northern Arkansas, since 2019 they have been working in caves in central Tennessee. The team has received funding from NASA, The National Cave and Karst Research Institute, The Tennessee Cave Survey, the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, and the Explorers Club.
The team will present the lecture “Blue Goo and Petroleum Ponds: Unique Central Tennessee Caves as Potential New Models for Life in Subsurface Martian Environments.” The presentation will be held in the Rainey Room of ASMSA’s Creativity and Innovation Complex and will feature some hands-on elements. The lecture is open to the public.
The lecture is named in honor Kane Allen of Dover, who was 17 and a student at ASMSA when he died in February 2007. Among his many interests, he was concerned about global warming and the environment. His family established the lecture series in his honor through a gift to the school.
The team is comprised of Henderson State professors James Engman and Michael Ray Taylor as well as Henderson students Aspen Huseman, Matti Fairchild, Kaitlyn Farr, Maya Robles and Tiffany Taylor.
Taylor is a senior from Hot Springs who is a 2019 graduate from Lake Hamilton High School. She is majoring in Wildlife and Field Biology and joined the team during the Spring of 2022 semester.
Engman is a professor of biology at Henderson State, where he has been teaching since 1996. He often has led study-abroad trips to study various topics, including the ecology of coral reefs in Panama and Belize. He will lead his 35th group — including some ASMSA students — to Belize this summer.
Taylor is the author of several popular books on caves and cave science, including “Hidden Nature, Cave Passages, Dark Life, and Caves: Exploring Hidden Realms,” a National Geographic book published as a companion to the McGillivray Freeman IMAX film “Journey Into Amazing Caves.” He has written about science, conservation and exploration for The New York Times, Nashville Scene, Sports Illustrated, The Houston Chronicle, Wired and many other print and digital publications. He has also worked on documentaries for National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel and the PBS series “Nova.”
Huseman, Fairchild, Farr and Robles are all seniors majoring in biology or wildlife and field biology.