Parks Collins

Parks Collins is a Biology Professor at Mitchell Community College and a long-standing instructor in the HHMI Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program since 2018. He teaches multiple sections of General Biology (BIO 111/BIO 112) courses integrating authentic research, with institutional affiliation solely at Mitchell Community College.

His research focuses on:

• Bacteriophage discovery using Microbacterium foliorum and Mycobacterium smegmatis hosts
• Genomic analysis of phages through bioinformatics
• Undergraduate research pedagogy in microbiology
• Integration of wet-lab and computational approaches in biology education

Over 7 years, Dr. Collins has mentored 200+ students across 15+ course sections (9-16 students each), primarily freshmen/sophomores, with 2-3 weekly meetings totaling 2-7 hours. He collaborates extensively with Justin Leonard and participates in SEA workshops/symposia. No individual awards are documented, but his work is embedded in the HHMI-funded SEA-PHAGES network.

He maintains teaching laboratories for phage isolation and utilizes bioinformatics platforms through PhagesDB, contributing to national phage databases while preparing students for upcoming 2025-2026 SEA initiatives including the Phage Genomics Workshop.