EDUCATION
- University of Connecticut (1976) – Doctor of Philosophy – Marine Ecology
- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1969) – Master of Science – Limnology
- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (1967) – Bachelor of Science – Zoology
Education specific to writing:
- Famous Writers’ course – 1964
- Introduction to Creative Writing and Advanced Creative Writing courses taken at The University of Alabama in Huntsville – 1994
- Travel Writers’ Workshop sponsored by The Huntsville Times, Ms. Debra Story, Entertainment Editor, instructor – 1999
- Creative Writing Workshop sponsored by Department of English, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Kelly Cherry, instructor – 2000
- Writing Today, Annual Writers Conference, Birmingham-Southern College -- 2005
- Writing Dialogue with an Impact, taken through the Writers University, Karl Iglesias, instructor – 2006
- Middle of the Novel, Kelly Dwyer, instructor, and Fiction Essentials, instructor John Dalton, Iowa Summer Writing Festival – 2007
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS:
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- Alabama Writers’ Conclave – Historian 2005-09.
- Alabama Writers’ Forum – member.
- Huntsville Literary Association – Executive Board 2007-09
- Tennessee Writers Alliance – member
- Tennessee Mountain Writers – member
- National Maritime Historical Society – member
- Alabama Ornithological Society – member
- U. S. Naval Institute – member
PREVOUSLY PUBLISHED ARTICLES:
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- Huntsville and the State Bird – Old Huntsville Magazine – November 2007
- Instructions for a First Confession – Muscadine Lines – May/June 2007
- Santa Lucia Day – Birmingham Arts Journal – Spring 2007
- Raccoon Encounter – Muscadine Lines, an e-zine – November/December 2006
- How I Met My Cat, Bugsy – Birmingham Arts Journal – 2006, Vol. 3, Issue #1.
- Ecosystems – Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues – R. McClenaghan (ed.) – Salem Press, 2000
- Fish Kills – Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues – R. McClenaghan (ed.) – Salem Press, 2000
- Black Skimmers – Bird Watcher’s Digest – 1996, July/August Issue
- Togetherness in the Shallows – Sea Frontiers – 1995, Winter Issue
- Skimming for Dinner: Feeding Behavior of the Black Skimmer – Sea Frontiers – 1986, volume 32, issue 2, pages 131-136.
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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
During his career as a marine and freshwater ecologist, Dr. Richard Modlin, wrote and published over seventy scientific articles, book chapters and reviews. Born in Toledo, Ohio and educated at the Universities of Wisconsin and Connecticut, he is an Emeritus Professor of Biological Sciences at the and the former Director of the UAH Honors Program. Richard is now avidly pursuing his second career as an author. Although his primary interests have shifted to creative writing fiction, non-fiction, travel adventures, short stories and novels, he is still interested natural history. His popular press articles have appeared in Sea Frontiers, Bird Watcher’s Digest, Encyclopedia of Environmental Issues, Birmingham Arts Journal, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal and in other magazines. He is the author of the book title Malachite Lion, A Travel Adventure in Kenya, which describes his travel adventures to East Africa. Recently he has completed his second book, Chasing Wings, where he recounts his bird watching exploits and encounters. Richard has received several awards for his writings.
 Occasionally, Richard may be heard reading his short essays on WLRH, Huntsville’s National Public Radio affiliate. He is the Historian of the Alabama Writers’ Conclave, the oldest, continuously active, writers’ society in the United States and on the Executive Board of the Huntsville Literary Association, where he chairs the Young Writers Contest.
His career gave Richard considerable opportunity to travel. His appointment as the UAH Liaison Officer to the Alabama Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium connected him with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, where he spent many summers teaching and doing research. As a senior research fellow with the Smithsonian Institution’s Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems program,  Richard swam for hours, underwater, examining the mangrove swamps and coral reefs off the coast of Central Belize. He worked a year at the University of Lund, Sweden as a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar, and has traveled extensively throughout North and Central America, Europe, East Africa, and the islands of the Western Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea. He is an ardent SCUBA diver, bird watcher and nature photographer.
Presently, Richard and his wife Marian, who is also a writer, live in a forest on a mountainside in North Alabama and spend part of their summers on the Downeast Coast of Maine.
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