The University of Tampa appointed Dr. James Gore of USF St. Petersburg as their new dean of the College of Natural and Health Sciences.

As dean, Gore will oversee the departments of biology, chemistry and physics, exercise science and sport studies and nursing.

After working at the University of South Florida for five years, Gore made the decision to switch to UT because he said he likes its dynamic developments.

‘It’s a stable and productive liberal arts institution and that’s what I like,’ Gore said.

He also enjoys the smaller class sizes. ‘I like getting to know each student personally, which is why I’ve always been drawn to working at smaller universities,’ Gore said.

Gore specializes in studying sea turtles, streams and rivers and plans to organize a trip to Southern Africa where he can teach about these subjects first hand. The course name will be Natural History of Southern Africa and he hopes to be teaching the course by this fall.

Gore has already organized similar trips with USF’s St. Petersburg campus where he took students to Cape Town, Madagascar and Botswana.

Growing up in New Mexico, Gore came from a family of scientists. His parents worked on the Manhattan project at the University of California in the Los Alamos Laboratory where the atomic bomb was first developed.
After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Colorado, Gore spent some time flying F-4 Phantom jets in Vietnam during the war. He was shot down and kept as a prisoner for some time.

Gore then went on to complete his Master’s and Doctorate at the University of Montana. From 1994-1996, he served as the director and senior scientist of the Environmental Protection Division of The Conservancy of Southwest Florida.

Since 1978, Gore’s research expertise in aquatic ecology, hydrology and conservation, has had nearly $4.5 million of funded research proposals and contracts.

Gore says the UT faculty in the College of Natural and Health Sciences seems like a good group of people and he is excited to start working with them.

‘The students seem to love their teachers and that’s what I like to see, students respecting their teachers and teachers respecting their students,’ Gore said.

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