Amanda is a 7th year PhD candidate in the Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology working in the lab of Ripan Malhi. Her work focuses on assessing the genetic effects of European colonization on a First Nations population in Canada examining both ancient and present-day DNA.
Jake is a 3rd year Master’s student in the Entomology Department working in the lab of May Berenbaum. His research looks at the plant compound resveratrol and its effects on the development of three lepidopteran (moth) species.
Ceci is a third year PhD student in Plant Biology working in Jim Dalling’s lab. Her research focuses on how abiotic factors, especially soil characteristics, influence plant community distribution and composition in montane tropical forest.
Christine is a 4th year PhD student from NRES working in the Hoover Lab at the Illinois Natural History Survey. She studies wild turkey behavior – specifically, how forest management may influence turkey habitat selection at different scales, and how incubation behavior may influence reproductive success.
Tara is 5th year PhD Candidate from PEEC working in the Cáceres lab. Her work integrates theory from disease ecology and ecological immunology to better understand the causes and consequences of variable immunity for the dynamics of infectious disease. Tara’s research explores the invertebrate immune response, how it is shaped by environmental factors, and how individual variation in immunity scales up to affect host-parasite dynamics at the population level.
Continue reading “A Week in the Life – Tara Stewart Merrill”
Stephany is a second year PhD student from PEEC working in Kevin Johnson’s lab. Her work focuses on the evolutionary patterns of avian ectoparasites (lice), using whole genomes of lice, and phylogenomics. She also works on seal lice.
Continue reading “A Week in the Life – Stephany Virrueta Herrera”
Shelby is a second year PhD student from Animal Biology, working in Mark Hauber’s lab. Her research focuses on the perceptual and neural processing of functional reference calling in yellow warblers, and the effects of experience on these mechanisms.
Lynette is a 5th year PhD student in Animal Biology working in the Cáceres lab. Her research takes advantage of a naturally-occurring color polymorphism in a species of Neotropical tortoise beetle (Chelymorpha alternans). She investigates both the ecological (predation and sexual selection) and genomic (through genome sequencing and linkage mapping) forces that maintain this phenotypic variation in this system.
Comb your hair and put on your dancing shoes, we’re having the new grad student party this Friday, September 21st at 7PM! Cody and Kevin have graciously agreed to host. Please check your email for the location.
Please don’t forget your $5 donation😉. Feel free to bring other drinks, more snacks, or just your fun, fabulous self. And of course +1’s are welcome. I’ve made a Spotify playlist for the dance floor, if you want to add to it go right ahead.
See you Friday,
Matt is a 4th year PhD in NRES. He works at Dr. Jen Fraterrigo’s landscape ecology lab, studying how herbaceous communities are structured in the southern Appalachian Mountains, and how these extremely diverse communities may respond to accelerated climate change, with the aim of improving plant conservation efforts.
