Carly Manz

Carly Manz is a Teaching Professor and Assistant Chair for Teaching in the Department of Biology at Iowa State University. She specializes in human anatomy, biology education, and paleontology, with a focus on skeletal biology and evolutionary relationships of ancient mammals. Her roles include course director for multi-section lab courses and teaching a range of formats from introductory to graduate-level classes. She holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Florida (2015) and a B.S. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan (2008).

Dr. Manz’s research integrates educational pedagogy and paleontology. She leads studies on how testing and recall enhance student learning, beliefs about learning impacting academic success, and digitization improving observational skills. Her paleontological work explores systematics of Paleocene-Eocene mammals and functional morphology of early equids and cetaceans. She co-authored a widely used textbook Investigating Biology and developed an open-access human anatomy lab manual.

Her publications span educational resources to peer-reviewed studies in journals like Journal of Mammalian Evolution and Biology Letters. She actively contributes to multi-disciplinary education research teams and has mentored students in both teaching and research capacities. Her work bridges laboratory instruction innovation with historical biology, emphasizing anatomical and evolutionary principles.