About

I’m Ross Zimmerman. I was born in 1952 in Madison Indiana while my parents were attending Hanover College. My father Jim ZImmerman went on to graduate school in Zoology at Indiana University in Bloomington. After a post-doc at Wichita State University (in Kansas) and a period at Indiana Central College (now the University of Indianapolis), Dad took a job in the Biology Department of New Mexico State University (NMSU) in 1961. I have a vague memory of coming over the top of San Agustin Pass into the Mesilla Valley of the Rio Grande, coming into Las Cruces New Mexico.

I lived in Las Cruces until I graduated from NMSU in 1974 with a Bachelor of Science in Biology. Between 1961 and 1974, my mother Rachel started teaching 4th grade at Carl Conlee Elementary School, which I attended before she started teaching. So both parents were academics. Las Cruces is named for crosses at graves marking the deaths of travelers through the Jornada del Muerto, a dangerous short shortcut of the route from Mexico City to Santa Fe (now the capital of New Mexico). This is relevant because as an undergrad at NMSU I worked as a field technician on sites in the Jornada where the International Biological Program was surveying the plants and animals. This immersion in the Chihuahuan Desert affected my world view. I was a biology major, having decided I wanted that direction when I took introductory biology in my sophomore year at Las Cruces High School. That set the an orientation for the rest of my life, although it’s not my only interest.

I expect to see mountains nearby. Here’s a view of the Organ Mountains east of Las Cruces, which set that expectation.