Education
- PhD, Physical Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
- BA, Mathematics, University of California, San Diego
Experience
Dr. Power considers himself an organismal biologist. Although his primary subject species are primates, Mike is more interested in topics/problems than any particular taxa. His approach focuses on the internal world of the animal (anatomy, physiology, and metabolism) rather than the external world (ecology, social structure, and behavior). Mike has been engaged in research on digestion, nutrition, and metabolism in marmosets and tamarins since his doctoral dissertation, and on milk composition since 1994. He is a Co-PI on NIH-sponsored research into the relationships between diet, digestion and health in the common marmoset. Over the last 20 years Mike has been investigating the nutrient composition of milk from many species, ranging from Asian elephants to the pygmy marmoset. More recently his research has expanded to include investigations of hormones and other bioactive molecules in milk and the milk microbiome. He is the curator of the Milk Repository at the Smithsonian, which contains milk samples from over 200 mammals.
Research Interests
- Comparative milk composition
- Digestion
- Energy metabolism
- Vitamin D
