Rate My Professor Ken Hillers

Kenneth J. Hillers, Ph.D., serves as Professor and Chair of the Biological Sciences Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he joined the faculty in 2004. He received his B.S. from Western Washington University in 1990, Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1998, and completed postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine. Hillers embodies Cal Poly's Learn by Doing philosophy by integrating hands-on research into teaching and advising students in areas such as cell division, genetics, and molecular biology. As department chair, he regularly authors newsletters that highlight faculty achievements, student successes, new hires, and the department's commitment to excellence in both teaching and research amid challenges like weather events and growth initiatives.

Hillers specializes in chromosome biology and meiosis, using model organisms including yeast and nematodes to investigate critical processes like crossover interference, chromosome-wide regulation of crossing over, heteroduplex rejection, and synaptic adjustment in asymmetric bivalents. His seminal publications encompass early work on recombination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, such as 'The Conversion Gradient at HIS4 of Saccharomyces cerevisiae' (Genetics, 1999; two papers), 'Heteroduplex Rejection in Yeast?' (Trends in Genetics, 2000), and 'Whence Meiosis?' (Cell, 2001, co-authored during postdoctoral period). At Cal Poly and prior, he advanced nematode meiosis studies with 'Chromosome-Wide Control of Meiotic Crossing over in C. elegans' (Current Biology, 2003), 'Chromosome-Wide Regulation of Meiotic Crossover Formation in Caenorhabditis elegans Requires Properly Assembled Chromosome Axes' (Genetics, 2004), 'Crossover Interference' (Current Biology, 2004), 'Analysis of Meiotic Recombination in Caenorhabditis elegans' (Methods in Molecular Biology, 2009), 'SNP-Based Mapping of Crossover Recombination in Caenorhabditis elegans' (Methods in Molecular Biology, 2011), and 'An Asymmetric Chromosome Pair Undergoes Synaptic Adjustment and Crossover Redistribution During Caenorhabditis elegans Meiosis' (PLoS Genetics, 2011). Additionally, he contributed to the authoritative WormBook chapter 'Meiosis' (2017). These efforts, cited over 800 times, have significantly shaped understanding of meiotic mechanisms ensuring accurate chromosome segregation and their evolutionary implications.