Current Lab Members
Jackie Billotte is an Ag. Bio. PhD student who started Fall 2020, working with me and Rich Reading of the Butterfly Pavilion (as co-chairs) on tarantula behavior, and conservation.
Lily Durkee is a GDPE PhD student who started fall 2019 and was awarded an NSF predoctoral fellowship spring 2020! She is working with the Tribolium system, focused on evolutionary and genetic rescue. A really amazing thing about Lily is that she has written two novels. Here's one of them.
Enakshi Ghosh was briefly a postdoc in my lab, and now is continuing in that role a tiny percent of her time while she also works with colleagues Chris Pires and Paul Ode. What an amazing collaborator she is! She works on insect immunity, plant-insect-parasitoid interactions, and rapid evolution.
Marcel Jardeleza is a GDPE PhD student who started fall 2020, after completing her MS with me just this summer. Marcel's PhD will focus on the effects of Brown Tree Snake invasion on Guam. Her MS was with me, Ian Pearse, Liba Pejchar and Cameron Ghalambor on Drosophila suzukii following up on her really cool REU research, which took place on Hawaii, looking at size variation in the flies with elevation.
Liana McIssac is a GDPE MS student working on the effects of biological control of tamarisk on the trees and surrounding vegetation.
Matt Wallace is a GDPE MS student working on the role of admixture in adaptation to challenging environments. He's so pro-active that he got a job with USDA APHIS even before he finished his coursework!
Lily Durkee is a GDPE PhD student who started fall 2019 and was awarded an NSF predoctoral fellowship spring 2020! She is working with the Tribolium system, focused on evolutionary and genetic rescue. A really amazing thing about Lily is that she has written two novels. Here's one of them.
Enakshi Ghosh was briefly a postdoc in my lab, and now is continuing in that role a tiny percent of her time while she also works with colleagues Chris Pires and Paul Ode. What an amazing collaborator she is! She works on insect immunity, plant-insect-parasitoid interactions, and rapid evolution.
Marcel Jardeleza is a GDPE PhD student who started fall 2020, after completing her MS with me just this summer. Marcel's PhD will focus on the effects of Brown Tree Snake invasion on Guam. Her MS was with me, Ian Pearse, Liba Pejchar and Cameron Ghalambor on Drosophila suzukii following up on her really cool REU research, which took place on Hawaii, looking at size variation in the flies with elevation.
Liana McIssac is a GDPE MS student working on the effects of biological control of tamarisk on the trees and surrounding vegetation.
Matt Wallace is a GDPE MS student working on the role of admixture in adaptation to challenging environments. He's so pro-active that he got a job with USDA APHIS even before he finished his coursework!
Former Lab Members
Chrissy Alba (christina.alba at ibot.cas.cz), GDPE PhD 2010. Chrissy first did a postdoc with Petr Pysek in the Czech Republic, then with Luke Flory in Florida, and now is permanently based as a research scientist at the Denver Botanical Garden. Yay Chrissy!
Ellyn Bitume (ebitume at gmail) Postdoc (USDA NIFA) 2014-2016 Ellyn studied rapid evolution of beetles feeding on Tamarix. Currently with the Forest Service on Hawaii working on biological control of weeds. ALSO, co-PI with me on a USDA NIFA grant (May 2017-April 2020). Woot!! google scholar page
Amy Blair (blairamyc at sau.edu), GDPE PhD 2007. Amy studied the role of hybridization in biological invasions using invasive Centaurea (Asteraceae). Additionally, Amy worked on the potential for allelopathy in C. stoebe (aka C. maculosa, spotted knapweed). She started a postdoc in Bernd Blossey's lab May 2008, and then took a job at Saint Ambrose University in 2009. She's head of the department there now!!
Jacqueline Buenrostro was an Ag. Bio. MS student from Fall 2020-Summer 2022, who worked on elm leaf beetle and elm flea weevil in urban areas, including evaluating the role of predators and parasitoids in their abundance. She's now a PhD student at University of Florida in Adam Dale's lab.
Eliza Clark completed her PhD in GDPE in 2024 supported by a USDA grant, and a USDA Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. She went on to a postdoc at CU Boulder and was awarded an NSF postdoctoral fellowship. Go, Eliza!
Stacy Endriss (endriss at uncw.edu) GDPE PhD 2017. Stacy worked with Andrew Norton and me on the evolutionary and chemical ecology of Verbascum thapsus. Stacy's research was supported by the coveted NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. (in one of the last years of that great program) She went on to a postdoc at Cornell University, and now has a faculty position at University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Go Stacy Go!
Christa Fettig (christafettig at gmail) GDPE PhD 2014 Christa studied black henbane ecology as well as Verbascum thapsus ecology and population genetics. She is currently teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder. And now a new momma. Yippee!!
Rebecca Hufft (rebecca.hufft at botanicgardens.org), PRIMES Postdoc 2008. Becky studied the evolutionary response of organisms to heterogeneous or changing environments with a focus on evolution of plants in novel environments and the evolution of species interactions. Becky worked with NEON, Inc. and is Associate Director of Applied Conservation at the Denver Botanic Gardens.
Javad Karimzadeh was a visiting scientist from Iran in the lab for 9 months in 2019. Javad's expertise is in insect ecology and tri-trophic interactions.
Mike Koontz (mikoontz at gmail) GDPE MS 2015. Mike worked with the Tribolium system to tease apart the effects of propagule size and number of propagules in the invasion of a new habitat. CONGRATULATIONS to Mike on being awarded a competitive NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and on getting into UC Davis for grad school. Way to go!
Sabrina Kumschick, Postdoc 2010, Sabrina focused on the evolution of resource use in an invasive plant. She joined us from Wofgang Nentwig's lab in Switzerland, and is now working at the Center for Invasion Biology with Dave Richardson in South Africa.
Peter Leipzig-Scott (peteleipzig at gmail) did his MS 2015 Peter worked on population and community impacts of biological invasion, with a focus on Verbascum thapsus. Peter then did a second masters in science education, also in GDPE with Meena Balgopol.
Casandra Lloyd, Dept. of BSPM MS 2004 co-chaired by Dr. Andrew Norton and myself - leafy spurge/gall fly coevolution. Cassie went on to do a PhD at University of California, Riverside, and now is teaching high school science.
Daniel MacKinnon, GDPE MS 2008. Dan studied the host use and population genetics of an inadvertently introduced biological control agent (Brachypterolus pulicarius on Linaria dalmatica and L. vulgaris). Dan is a Natural Resources Specialist for the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
Robin Marrs, GDPE PhD 2006. Robin explored the population genetics of biological invasions, particularly Centaurea diffusa and C. stoebe using microsatellites. Robin is teaching gradeschool these days and loves it.
Laure Olazcuaga spent the pandemic lock down and beyond working on rapid evolution using Tribolium. She returned to France in 2023 and is a postdoc at SEFE there. I miss her!!
Steven Rauth, Dept. of BSPM PhD 2009. Steve worked on the population genetics of two prospective biological control agents of garlic mustard (Ceutorhynchus alliariae and C. roberti and C. scrobicolis).
Ashley Schulz is a forest entomologist who did a postdoc in my lab and is now an Assistant Professor at Mississippi State University. Go Ashley!
Marianna Szucs was a postdoc then research scientist (2010-2017), collaborating on the roles of demography and genetics in the founding of new populations, and a USDA AFRI project on the role of hybridization in host-plant interactions between a biological control agent and tansy ragwort. She is now a faculty member at Michigan State in Entomology focused on Biological Control January 2018.
Kathryn Turner @KTInvasion was a postdoc (2015-2017) who worked with me and John McKay on an NSF funded ancient (herbarium) DNA project. Just what are the genetic changes that accompany invasions? We'll soon know. Kathryn went on to an Eberly College of Science Research Fellowship at the Pennsylvania State University November 2018, and is now on the faculty at Idaho State University! Woohoo!!
Megan Vahsen (mlvahsen at gmail) GDPE MS 2017 Megan worked on the role of timing and genetics in establishment of new populations, using Bromus tectorum as well as Tribolium castaneum. Megan started a PhD at Notre Dame Fall 2017.
Hannah Wilbur, GDPE MS 2013. Is Open Space Manager for the Town of Ipswich in the greater Boston area.
