PEOPLE

THE HEAD

Doug Taylor

B.S., Biology, Queen's University 1986; M.S. Biology, Queen's University 1988; Ph.D. Duke University 1993. Advisor, Janis Antonovics

My research interests are captured in other areas of this site. As a research advisor, I like to attract motivated students and give them the intellectual freedom to pursue areas of science where they have high enthusiasm and can have the greatest impact. This makes for a diverse and spirited atmosphere in the lab. Almost all my research activities are full collaborations with students and post-docs or have grown out of such collaborations.

POST-DOCS

Deb Triant

B.S., Wildlife Genetics, Lousiana State University, 2001; Ph.D., Genetics, Purdue University, 2006

Deb recently joined the lab with research interests in molecular evolution, comparative genomics, bioinformatics and systematics.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

Peter Fields (web page)

B.A., Biology, Alice Lloyd College 2006

Peter is studying the effects of metapopulation structure on individual-level and interdemic selection, and their interaction (termed multilevel selection).















Andrea Berardi (web page)

B.A., Biology, Colgate 2008

Andrea is studying the genetics and evolution of the flavonoid biosynthetic pathway and its contribution to local adaptation across elevational gradients in Silene vulgaris.









Brian Sanderson

B.S., Genetics, Kansas 2009

Brian comes to the lab with interests in the evolution of elements that have unusual mechanisms of transmission, from diseases to genes (including selfish and genetic elements and sex determination).









Hilary Edgington

B.A., Biology, College of Wooster 2010

Hilary is studying the effects of intermediate cave restriction on intraspecific gene flow as well as morphological change in the Cave Salamander, Eurycea lucifuga. She is also interested in gene flow between the Cave Salamander and a close relative the Longtail Salamander, E. longicauda.


















Megan Sebasky

B.S., Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Richmond 2010

Megan recently joined the lab as a Master's student and is interested in niche modeling of invasive species, and will be studying the invasion of Silene vulgaris.

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS & TECHNICIANS

Nikki Forrester

B.A., Anthropology, College of William and Mary

Nikki works as a research technician in the lab. She did an honors thesis on plant-polinator interactions in the yellow lady slipper orchid. She also worked with Henry Wilbur studying the spacial distribution of yellow birch and eastern helmlock trees.

Former Lab Members..."Where are they now?"...

POST-DOCTORAL ASSOCIATES

• Steve Keller - Steve is a former Ph.D. student then post-doctoral fellow who worked on the genetics and evolution of invasive species in their introduced ranges. He is now an assistant professor at the University of Maryland Centre for Environmental Science.
• Maurine Neiman - Maurine worked as a post-doctoral colleague on Muller’s ratchet and recombination in organelle genomes. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa and is accepting graduate students.
• Camille Barr - Camille worked as an NSF post-doctoral colleague on mitochondrial genome evolution in Silene. She is now an attorney.
• Steve Freedberg - Steve worked as an NSF post-doctoral colleague on models of evolution under both genetic and cultural inheritance. He s now an assistant professor at St. Olaf college.
• Pär K. Ingvarsson - Pär (a.k.a.) Pelle worked as a post-doctoral colleague on the molecular evolution of selfish genes in Silene, among other things. He holds faculty position in Sweden and is accepting graduate students.
• Lisa Horth - Lisa worked on the genetics of cytoplasmic male sterility in plants and the molecular evolution of melanism in fish. She is an assistant professor at Old Dominion University.
• Sheri Church - Actually, Sheri was a post-doc with Loren Riesberg at Indiana University, but she still spent much of her time here. Sheri worked on the molecular evolution and adaptive radiation of Houstonia in North America and genomic approaches to speciation in sunflowers. Sheri now has a Faculty Position at George Washington University.

GRADUATE STUDENTS

• Dan Sloan email - Dan examined extreme mutation rate variation in plant mitochondrial genomes. He is now a post-doc with Nancy Moran at Yale University.
• Quinn McFrederick email - Quinn worked on the coevolution between halictid bees and their nematode symbionts.  He is now a post-doc with John Jaenike at the Univeristy of Rochester, and will soon take up an NSF funded post-doc at UT Austin.
• Dexter Sowell email - Dexter worked on invasive species, and is now working for the Florida Department of Forestry.
• Steve Keller (refer to "post-doctoral associates")
• Leslie Rissler - Leslie is a former Ph.D. student who worked on the phylogeography of Desmognathus salamanders. She was an NSF Bioinformatics post-doctoral fellow with David Wake and Craig Moritz at UC Berkeley. She is now an Associate Professor and Curator of Herpetology at the University of Alabama.
• Sheri Church - (refer to "post-doctoral associates).
• Gretchen Arnold - Gretchen was an M.S. student that worked on inbreeding effects on small populations in Silene. She works for en environmental consulting firm.
• Kevin Stilwell - Kevin is a high school biology teacher in Southwest Virginia, who participated in the Mountain Lake Masters program. He has returned to the classroom.

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AND TECHNICIANS

• Laura Bergner is a graduate student at the University of Otago
• Kim Gilbert is a graduate student at the University of British Columbia.
• Alice MacQueen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
• Armanda Roco is a graduate student at Cornell University.
• Jessica Wignall is working as an environmental consultant for ICF International in Washington D.C.
• C.J. Jenkins is a graduate student at Washington State University.
• Ellen McRae is graduate student at Harvard University.
• Whit Farnum is working as a tech at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard .
• Rachel Prunier, Rachel got her Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut and is now a post-doc at Michigan State University.
• Elizabeth Ostrowski got her Ph.D. with Rich Lenski at Michigan State and is now a post-doctoral associate with the Queller-Strassman lab at Rice University.
• Meaghan Saur got her masters from Indiana University and is now working in Indiana.
• Erika Adams was a graduate student with Lynne Houck at Oregon State Univeristy, then did a post-doc at Cornell.
• Joel Kniskern was a graduate student at Duke, as post-doc at Chicago, and is now a research scientist with Seminis Corporation.
• David Fontana went to Yale Law School and is now an Associate Professor of Law at George Washington University.
• Kathrine Ross became a production assistant in Hollywood, and is a biostatistician

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