About

I’m Ross Zimmerman. I was born in 1952 in Madison Indiana near where my parents had met at 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 through the Organ Mountains, descending into the Mesilla Valley of the Rio Grande 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 90 mile shortcut on the route from Mexico City to Santa Fe (now the capital of New Mexico). Spaceport America is in the middle of the Jornada. In 1945 the Trinity Nuclear Test was done in the northern portion. 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 an orientation for the rest of my life, although it’s not my only interest.

Here’s a view of the Organ Mountains east of Las Cruces, with the area typical Chihuahuan Desert vegetation in the foreground.