Michael T. Balas, Ph.D.
Professor of Biology and Dr. Carl Hoffman ’69 H’10 Chair of Biology

  mbalas@thiel.edu
  724-589-2117
  Spence Academic Center - Room 402

For Professor of Biology and Chair of the Department of Biology Michael Balas, Ph.D., his Thiel College activities can run from the classroom to the woods to the football field.

Balas teaches basic biology courses along with higher level and advanced courses, but he also teaches the introduction to ornithology course. If he’s not in the classroom or lab teaching and working with students, helping them grow from first-year students to senior students—appreciating and seeing how much they have learned and grown “is the most personally fulfilling part of teaching,” he said—he can be found in the woods looking for birds with Thiel’s ornithology students or running the clock at football games.

“It’s fun to be around the festive atmosphere you get at a home football game,” he said.

Balas started teaching at Thiel in 2000, but in many ways his connection has been growing for years.

His father and two other family members are alumni and his wife counts 21 Thiel graduates in her circle. Before Thiel, Balas taught at St. John’s University in New York. He earned his undergraduate at Swarthmore College in 1989 and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Rochester.

In 2018, he attended a conference in Vancouver, British Columbia and presented a paper that was based on the research collaboration between Balas and four Thiel College students.

• Read more about his research collaboration with students.