So how did Burnett become batman?

Originally interested in the acoustic calls of cardinals, Burnett stumbled

upon his interest in bats quite by surprise. "One day while out taking

some pictures [of birds], I heard a strange sound, sort of like 'thip-thip-thip.'

I looked up and saw a bird that was flying very strangely. When the 'bird'

landed on the trunk of a tree, it was pretty obvious that what I was really

seeing was a bat."

Beginning his study of bats

while in graduate school, Burnett earned a B.A. in biology from Carleton

College (1992), a M.S. in zoology from Ohio State University (1997), and

a Ph.D in evolution, ecology, and organismal biology from Ohio State University

(2001). He began teaching biology at Clayton State in 2001 and has taught

seven courses and five corresponding lab classes as of fall 2002. In addition

to teaching, Burnett is the faculty advisor for Clayton State's biology

majors and is a member of many societies involving bats and biology.

To learn more about Burnett

and his past and present studies on bats visit Burnett's homepage at https://a-s.clayton.edu/burnett.

There you'll find Burnett's first picture of a bat, an explanation of

how bats use echolocation, sonograms of bat calls, and much more.