Hannah is a 2nd year PhD Student from Animal Biology working in the Anderson Lab. Her research focuses on the functional morphology and biomechanics of salamander skulls. She uses a combination of materials testing and computer modeling to explore the mechanical demands of feeding in aquatic and terrestrial taxa.
Alex is a 1st year Master’s student from Plant Biology, working with the Heath and Marshall-Colon labs. His research focuses on the evolution of partner quality variation in the legume-rhizobium mutualism. This type of mutualism can have variable effects on the host, ranging from highly beneficial to detrimental. Alex is using population genomics to parse out how that variation persists in natural systems.
Remember when you found that cool plant/insect/organism in the field? Or that really great photo of you doing your science in the lab? Or how about that ingenious experimental design that you created?
We want to show off YOUR hard work and photos at the 2019 GEEB Symposium!
The GEEB symposium is quickly approaching and is scheduled for Saturday, February 2nd.
Please send us photos of you doing what you do best – your scientific work! These will be displayed in a slideshow during the GEEB symposium for attendees to see the large variety of work done throughout our biology departments.
Jennifer is a 6th year PhD student (recently defended!) from PEEC working in the Dalling and Heath Labs. Her research focuses on how fungal and bacterial communities influence ecosystem nutrient and carbon cycles. For her dissertation, she studied how environmental conditions, wood characteristics, and fungal and bacterial communities interact to influence wood decay rate.
Selina is a 7th year PhD candidate in PEEC working in the Suarez lab. Her research focuses on ant-mediated seed dispersal in the Neotropics. She is describing patterns in seed removal of seed species that do not provide the typical food reward to ant species, investigating the chemical mechanism that promotes this ant-seed interaction, and the short-term seed fate consequences of these interactions.
Sam is a 5th year PhD candidate (recently defended!) from PEEC working in James Miller’s Lab. Her work focuses on using computational approaches to understand biodiversity-disease relationship in regard to the vector-borne disease, Lyme disease.
Michael is a 4th year PhD student from PEEC working in the Suarez Lab. His research focuses on the evolution of the worker caste in ants. He studies why some species have workers that vary in size while others don’t.
Karthik is a 3rd year PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology working in the Malhi Lab. His work focuses on dietary, environmental, and social influences on gut microbiomes, specifically in dogs and vampire bats, as proxies for humans.
Jacob is a 1st year PhD student in Entomology, working in Adam Dolezal’s Lab. His research focused on factors that may impact pollinator health such as nutrition, pathogens, urbanization, microbiomes, and many others. He currently works on the Honey bee system, but is interested in native bees and pollinators in general.
