Profile

For over 25 years, Tom Cronin has been gaining insight into what animals 'see'. Cronin, the director of the Marine, Estuarine and Environmental Sciences (MEES) graduate program at UMBC, is a world-leading expert on vision—animal vision. His work is helping the human world to better understand how other creatures experience the world, through their eyes. “It puts you in a different world-- you have to put yourself in the mind of another creature,” explains Cronin. “Through my research I’m trying to get a detailed understanding of what vision does for an animal, and to understand what’s special about the properties in the world that give animals a leg up. My research involves both biology and physics, and takes a multi-leveled approach—from molecules to behavior.”

This spring Cronin's excellence was honored with a University System of Maryland’s (USM) Board of Regents’s Faculty Award , for his outstanding contributions in the category of research, scholarship and creative activity. Nominated by UMBC’s President Hrabowski, Cronin was described as possessing the qualities of an ideal professor. “Tom Cronin epitomizes what every research university seeks in its professoriate,” praised Hrabowski.

For Cronin, a dedicated UMBC professor for 21 years, the USM award is the culmination of many recent achievements. In 1996 and 1999, Cronin represented UMBC as the leader of an underwater research mission on the research vehicle the Aquarius, the nation’s underwater equivalent of the space shuttle. He again joined the Aquarius team in 2001, accompanied by his graduate student Alex Cheroske, for an underwater mission. On top of this, in 2002, Cronin was elected a fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his “exceptional contributions” to vision research and graduate education. Also in 2002, Cronin was awarded a Graduate Education Award for his excellence in teaching and service from the MEES Graduate Student Organization.

Cronin’s reputation as a superb mentor and researcher has attracted many graduate students to his laboratory. Afsheen Siddiqi, a MEES master’s student, chose to come to UMBC specifically because of Cronin's research on dart frogs. Cronin presently mentors five graduate students in total (four Ph.D.’s and one master’s) in the MEES and biology programs, many of whom have also received recent recognition for their work. “He’s a really well-known, respected vision biologist. He’s introduced me to people all over the world. As an advisor, he really goes out of his way to be available for his students. He’s very busy with many academic pursuits, yet he still finds the time for whatever that may come up," states MEES Ph.D. candidate Alex Cheroske, who recently won a best poster award at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), as well as a recent underwater photo award.

Another outstanding contribution Cronin has made to science and education has been his publications, totaling 111 by recent count. In the last three years alone, Cronin has turned out 27 papers, three in the journals Science and Nature. His prolific output is a reflection on his true love and zest for his work, which he views as almost akin to “play.” “My work takes me all over the world—such as the Central Pacific, Australia and the Caribbean—because I need to study the natural environment where the animals face environmental challenges. It’s very international and very rewarding."

Cronin has studied quite a repertoire of animals, including lightning bugs, frogs, dolphins and whooping cranes. In recent years, Cronin’s research has focused on mantis shrimp. Seemingly simplistic creatures, “mantis shrimp actually possess what is in some ways the most complex visual system in nature,” says Cronin. Right now he is trying to explain how mantis shrimp use polarized light to communicate. “It’s an aspect of vision that humans don’t possess,” he explains.

Underlying all of Cronin’s work is a deep respect for nature. “My research is in the tradition of the naturalists in attempting to understand the world,” states the biology professor. “I hope my efforts will lead to an incremental improvement in our understanding of the world and bring a value--or even a wonder--to our understanding. My work won’t save the planet but I hope it helps to show how special our earth is and why it should be protected.”