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If you are a KSU undergraduate student and are excited about gaining some experience with field or laboratory research, email me to discuss opportunities! Likewise, if you are interested in joining the lab as a graduate student through KSU's Master of Science in Integrative Biology (MSIB) program, send me an email. Here and here are some articles with good general advice about how to pursue a graduate degree in ecology and evolutionary biology.
graduate students
Raquel Gonzalez
Raquel joined the lab as an MSIB student in Fall 2023. She is studying the range-wide population genomics of the Chamberlain's Dwarf Salamander—a species petitioned for federal listing.
Cooper Kework
Cooper joined the lab as an MSIB student in Fall 2023. He is studying alternative reproductive tactics in two-lined salamanders in the Appalachian Mountains.
undergraduate students
Lexi Bailey
Lexi joined the lab in Fall 2021 and has conducted laboratory behavioral trials to better understand how two-lined salamanders locate and choose mates. In Summer 2022, Lexi conducted salamander field research as part of KSU's Summer Undergraduate Research Program.
Sam Francus
Sam joined the lab in Fall 2023 and is using genetic methods to screen a reptile species for toxin resistance in an effort to solve a local natural history riddle.
Zaynab Massenburg
Zaynab joined the lab in Fall 2021 and has conducted laboratory behavioral trials to better understand how two-lined salamanders locate and choose mates.
Fer Montes de Oca Sierra
Fer joined the lab in Spring 2023 and is using genetic data to address a few interesting questions in salamanders—including the identity of some waterdogs from the Appalachian Mountains.
Bridgette Popov
Bridgette joined the lab in Spring 2023 and is conducting salamander courtship trials to better document these fascinating behaviors in Appalachian salamanders.
Allison Vessell
Allison joined the lab in Fall 2022 and is evaluating methods for determining salamander body condition and health.
Ken Wang
Ken originally joined the lab as a high school researcher and studied salamander reproductive morphology in 2022. Now an undergraduate at Georgia Tech, Ken continues to work in our lab (in collaboration with Dr. Joe Mendelson @ Zoo Atlanta) on toad phylogeography.
Patrick Young
Patrick joined the lab in Fall 2023 and is comparing sampling biases from salamander occurrence data in museum records vs. citizen science databases.
lab alumni
Leah Rittenburg
From 2021–2023, Leah was an MSIB student in the lab. She conducted comprehensive field surveys to study how urbanization influences salamander life history traits and community composition.
Yatin Kalki
From 2021–2023, Yatin was an MSIB student in the lab. He used field and laboratory methods to better understand the nature of alternative reproductive tactics in salamanders.
Frankie McGowan
In 2021 and 2022, Frankie studied how color and pattern varied between sexes and reproductive tactics in two-lined salamanders.
Devan H. Faddis
From Fall 2021 – Fall 2022, Devan contributed to many lab efforts. Most notably, she conducted courtship trials to better understand sexual isolation between different species of two-lined salamanders and designed an experiment to understand how urbanization influences stream chemistry and salamander growth.
Jasmine Brown
In Fall 2022, Jasmine contributed to a variety of projects—including efforts to explore the genetic correlates of alternative reproductive tactics and our lab's first forays into Nanopore sequencing.
Emma Downing
From Fall 2021 – Fall 2022, Emma worked on a wide variety of projects in the lab. She designed and conducted field research to understand nest-site selection in urban salamanders and worked with museum specimens to evaluate how salamanders respond to land-use change. In Summer 2022, Emma led our lab's efforts to survey for the patch-nosed salamander using environmental DNA.
Karam Ittayem
In 2021 and 2022, Karam used environmental DNA (eDNA) methods to survey for chytrid fungi in urban streams.
Kelly-Ann McDonald
In Spring and Summer 2021, Kelly-Ann collected data from museum specimens and used geometric morphometric methods to study secondary sexual characters in salamanders.
Tyshiona Brandon
In Spring and Summer 2021, Tye collected data from museum specimens and used geometric morphometric methods to study secondary sexual characters in salamanders.
Jadin Cross
In Fall 2020 and Spring 2021, Jadin assembled and analyzed genome-wide SNP data to better understand the phylogeography of slimy salamanders in northern Georgia.
Jasmyne Blake-Sinclair
In Fall 2020, Jasmyne curated and analyzed observations from the citizen science databases, field notes, and scientific literature to better understand the phenology of nesting in two-lined salamanders. In Spring and Summer 2021, Jasmyne extracted and amplified DNA to identify a mysterious predator of an Appalachian salamander.
Tyler Schwartz
In Fall 2020, Tyler used his GIS skills to build maps and analyze data to understand how Eurycea are distributed among river drainages.
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