Dr. Heath Macmillan

Biography

Heath MacMillan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Carleton University. His research focuses on environmental stressors that impose limits on animal performance, including movement, growth, and reproduction, which ultimately affect fitness. He aims to fully understand the impacts of stressors on animal distribution and abundance while planning ways to mass-rear animals and comprehend the mechanisms of stress tolerance. The MacMillan Lab studies how various environmental variables, such as extreme temperatures and plastic pollution, limit individual performance and survival. By using insect models, including crickets and fruit flies, the lab integrates observations from molecular to whole-animal levels to build and test conceptual models that explain performance variation. MacMillan encourages inquiries from talented scientists interested in starting projects in insect physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology.

Research Interests