Ecology, Evolution and Behavior
Elizabeth Austin
BA from Middlebury College
Research interests: conservation paleobiology, using paleontological data to better understand ecology, evolution, and extinction and its application to modern systems.
Lab: Dr. Melissa Kemp
Julia Berliner
B.S. Biological Sciences and Environmental Science, Binghamton University, M.S. Entomology, University of Georgia
Research interests: Julia is so excited to continue to explore how nutrients shape food webs in the Koltz lab, where she will examine how land use mediates the availability, nutritional quality, and community composition of invertebrates eaten by shorebirds overwintering on the Texas coast.
Lab: Dr. Amanda Koltz
Caroline Chessher
B.S. in Biology (concentration: ecology, evolution, and behavior) and Minor in Core Texts and Ideas from UT Austin
Research interests: I am interested in soil-plant-insect interactions with a focus in pollination ecology and agroecology. I hope to conduct studies that link above and belowground interactions to further understand the relationships connecting biodiversity and function in agricultural systems and beyond.
Lab: Dr. Shalene Jha
Annie Cress
BA University of Michigan
Research interests: understanding the linkages between community structure and ecosystem function. I am fascinated by the impact of anthropogenic activity on ecosystem and community dynamics in addition to the feedbacks between organisms and ecosystem functions.
Lab: Dr. Amanda Koltz
Aranya Dhibar
BS and MS from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
Research interests: I am deeply interested in evolution and the role of symbiosis in the evolutionary process. Using corals as a model organism, I seek to investigate these phenomena through big-data analysis.
Lab: Dr. Misha Matz
Dhanuj Gandikota
B.S in Ecology, Evolution, and Biodiversity, B.S in Computer Science, B.S in Data Science: all from The University of Michigan
Research interests: use of modeling to scale-up microecological mechanisms with biogeophysical processes to map macroecological outcomes and mechanisms.
Lab: Dr. Tim Keitt
Katy Martinson
BS in Biology with a minor in Computer Science from Bucknell University
Research interests: I’m interested in population genomics, computational biology, and studying coevolution in non-model organisms.
Lab: Dr. Arbel Harpak
Xinyi Miao
BA: University of Science and Technology of China
Research interests: I am interested in population genetics and GWAS. The integration of biology and math fascinates me a lot.
Lab: Dr. Arbel Harpak
Joy Richardson
B.S. in Biology (EEB) from UT Austin
Research interests: environmental sensing and the progression of habitat fragmentation and loss as well as the overall implications and effects of urban development.
Lab: Dr. Tim Keitt
Elizabeth Snyderman
BA from Vassar College and my MPH from the University of Minnesota
Research interests: studying infectious disease modeling. Infectious disease models can be used to predict the spread and severity of a disease within a population.
Lab: Dr. Lauren Meyers
Sun Yi Soh
BA: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Research interests: interested in forest dynamics and tree community ecology, with a background in the tropics. He hopes to use both field-based and theoretical methods to uncover how plant biodiversity is sustained in forests.
Lab: Dr. Caroline Farrior
Sam Zbinden
BA from University of Florida (Geology/Anthropology)
Research interests: examines the diversity and morphological changes within fossil salamander communities in response to historical climatic events. This research is particularly focused on conservation paleobiology, aiming to inform modern conservation efforts through the study of paleoecology.
Lab: Dr. Melissa Kemp
Plant Biology
Yuyang Li
MSc: University of Glasgow (UK), BSc: Southern University of Science and Technology (Guangdong, China)
Research interests: The epigenetics and epigenomics of plants and plant-environment interactions in plants life cycle.
Lab: Dr. Hong Qiao
Thi Yen Do
BA (Biology, Hanoi National University of Education, Vietnam), MA (Biomedicine, University of Science and Technology Hanoi, Vietnam)
Research interests: focus on plant metabolism and the mechanism of plant stress response.
Lab: Dr. Hong Qiao
