InstructorBette J.S. Jackson, Ph.D.

Bette Jackson is an Associate Professor of Biology at Florida Gulf Coast University and has thirty years of college teaching experience. She also has taught biology courses at Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, East Mississippi Community College, and Mary Holmes College.

Dr. Jackson received her doctorate in 1982 from Mississippi State University. Her research focuses mainly on the behavior and ecology of birds and she has worked extensively with Killdeer, shorebirds, and woodpeckers. Endangered species are a special interest. Dr. Jackson has published numerous articles in professional and popular journals and she was also a contributor to the most recent edition of the Grzimek’s Encyclopedia of Animal Life.

Betty often does bird banding workshops and other programs for grade and middle school classes and has taught courses on tropical birds for middle school students in Amazonian Peru. She is an Elected Member of the American Ornithologist’s Union, a member of the honorary societies of Sigma XI and Phi Kappa Phi, and has twice been selected for inclusion in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. Bette Jackson, her husband Jerry, and their two teenage sons, Brent and Matt, live in Naples, Florida.