current Graduate Students
Current graduate students, to add or update your information, please fill out the form here
Mira Abrecht
Advisor: David Jacobs
Office: 2162 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Environmental DNA, genomics of estuarine fish
Katie Adler
Advisor: Dan Blumstein
Research: Behavior, conservation, human-wildlife interactions
Ary Amaya
Advisor: Elsa Ordway
Office: 4th Floor Botany
Research: Indigenous ecological management and monitoring of urban ecosystem dynamics using remote sensing technologies
Wilmer Amaya-Mejia
Advisor: Pamela Yeh
Office: 2nd floor Botany
Research: Urbanization of dark-eyed juncos and their diseases.
Ioana Anghel
Advisor: Felipe Zapata
Research: Evolution of species and floral scent in the flowering plant genus Linanthus
Berenice Badillo
Advisor: Victoria Sork
Office: 4140 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Phone: 310-794-1431
Research: Local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity of trees in response to climate change, conservation biology
Taylor Bastian
Advisor: Dan Blumstein
Phone: (150)960-7760
Research: Environmental impacts on social structure and fitness
Austin Betancourt
Advisor: Paul Barber
Office: 2140 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Conservation henomics/marine ecology and evolution
Elizabeth Blackmore
Advisor: James Lloyd-Smith
Office: Terasaki Life Sciences Building 4000
Research: Historical ecology of infectious disease
Kobie Boslough
Advisor: Karen Sears
Office: 2162 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Evolutionary biology of bats, mechanisms of aging and development, mammalian reproduction and reproductive senescence
Madeline Cowen
Advisor: Priyanga Amarasekare & Pamela Yeh
Research: I study how bird populations respond to climate change using mathematical models.
Joseph Curti
Advisor: Robert Wayne and Bradley Shaffer
Office: 4153 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Application of whole-genome sequencing to California conservation management in California quail (Callipepla californica), California red-legged frogs (Rana draytonii), and Yuma myotis bats (Myotis yumanensis).
Morgan Dean
Advisor: Elsa Ordway
Research: Tropical forest structure
Carissa DeRanek
Advisor: Elsa Ordway
Research: Diversity-stability relationships across California ecosystems
Joseph Di Liberto
Advisor: Dr. Pamela Yeh
Office: 2nd Floor Botany
Research: Urban Ecology, Animal Behavior, Integrative Biology, Conservation, Ornithology
Eleanor (Ellie) Diamant
Advisor: Pamela Yeh
Office: 2nd Floor Botany
Research: How bird populations respond to strong anthropogenic change
Evan Doughty
Advisor: Jonathan Marcot and Blaire Van Valkenburgh
Office: 310 Botany
Phone: 310-825-4669
Research: Using functional traits (e.g., body mass) to discern relationships between the large mammalian herbivore and predator guilds and how those relationships change alongside the climatic and vegetative transitions of the North American Cenozoic (66 Ma-present)
Tanner Dulay
Advisor: Priyanga Amarasekare
Office: 660 Boyer
Research: Emergence of community structure in ecological interactions, particularly mutualisms
S. Madigan Durham
Advisor: Molly Fox
Research: Understanding human health from an evolutionary perspective, in particular thinking about life history and the impact of epigenetics.
Janine Fischer
Advisor: Gregory Grether and Debra Shier
Office: 4329 Life Science Building (LSB)
Research: How interspecific competition affects species coexistence and the conservation of threatened and endangered species
John Amiel Flores
Advisor: Paul Barber
Research: Investigating the potential of organism transport on problematic macroalgal mats using metabarcoding techniques
Ashlyn Ford
Advisor: Peggy Fong
Office: 4100 Life Science Building (LSB)
Research: Assessing the health of tropical reef communities and evaluating how infectious diseases are impacting these communities
Cynthia Frausto
Advisor: Peter Nonacs
Cynthia Frausto
Advisor: Peter Nonacs
Office: 3rd Floor Botany
Research: Ecological consequences of invasive species, specifically in Eastern fox squirrels; personality variation; agonistic interactions
Sara Freimuth
Advisor: Pamela Yeh
Office: 2nd Floor La Kretz Botany Building
Research: urban ecology, evolution, gut microbiome, science communication
Kaija Gahm
Advisor: Noa Pinter-Wollman
Office: 3rd Floor Botany
Research: Movement ecology and social behavior of vultures; open science, open code, and computational reproducibility
Alejandra Gamboa
Advisor: Noa Pinter-Wollman
Research: Reciprocal relationships between host behavior and the microbiome
Lauren Glevanik
Advisor: Nathan Kraft
Office: 4th Floor Botany
Research: Traits that affect seed dispersal, community assembly, and patterns of biodiversity and coexistence in Californian grasslands
Jesse Gomez
Advisor: Dr. Lawren Sack
Office: 4th Floor Botany
Research: Plant physiology, Phloem transport, and the impacts of phloem on xylem function.
Shalanda Grier
Advisor: Peggy Fong
Research: Anthropogenic Stress, Resilience, Species Interactions, Coral Reefs
Katie Hannibal
Advisor: Peggy Fong
Phone: 818-942-4269
Research: Anthropogenic effects on nearshore marine ecosystems, specifically how algal interactions influence community structure
Kenji Hayashi
Advisor: Nathan Kraft
Office: 410 Botany
Phone: 310-825-4967
Research: Consequences of competitive interactions in spatially heterogeneous environments for plant species distributions and coexistence
Madison Hopkins
Advisor: Greg Grether
Office: 4329 Life Science Building (LSB)
Research: Interspecific interactions, theory and modeling, evolution of interspecific territoriality
Aidan Howenstine
Advisor: Karen Sears
Office: TSLB 2162
Research: The role of gene network architecture in biasing the development of phenotypic variation
Christiane Jacquemetton
Advisor: Blaire Van Valkenburgh
Office: 2162 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Morphology and variation across Canidae
Mark Juhn
Advisor: Michael Alfaro and Blaire Van Valkenburgh
Office: 3rd Floor Botany
Research: Carnivora macroevolution and tanager color evolution
Elizabeth Karan
Advisor: Michael Alfaro
Office: 2154 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Phone: 310-206-2240
Research: Reef fish color pattern evolution , macroevolution, evolutionary ecology
Hannah Larson
Advisor: Colin Kremer
Research: Eco-evolutionary effects of dormancy on phytoplankton fitness in fluctuating environments
Peter Laurin
Advisor: Nandita Garud
Office: 4114 Life Science Building (LSB)
Research: Population genetics, adaptation, life history, bacteria, microbiomes
Shanti Lindberg
Advisor: Karen Sears
Office: 2162 TLSB
Research: Investigating the evolution and development of the marsupium (i.e., the pouch) in New World marsupials. Utilization of museum collections on research.
Onny Nurrahman Marwayana
Advisor: Paul Barber
Office: Barber Lab
Phone: 310-889-4552
Research: Environmental DNA (eDNA), Marine Biology, Zoology, Marine Ecology, Molecular Ecology, Ecology, Aquatic Community.
Alin Mazmanian
Advisor: Barbara Natterson-Horowitz
Research: Evolutionary medicine, mental health, comparative physiology
Rosa McGuire
Advisor: Priyanga Amarasekare
Office: 660 Boyer
Research: Temperature effects on population dynamics and species interactions
Graham Montgomery
Advisor: Morgan Tingley
Research: Insect declines & their impacts on insectivorous bird populations, ecological monitoring, and evidence synthesis
Sean O'Fallon
Advisor: Noa Pinter-Wollman
Research: Ecological and evolutionary relationship between nest architecture and collective behavior, considering the spatial structure of the nest as an extended phenotype of the ant colony
Marissa Ochoa
Advisor: Lawren Sack and Victoria Sork
Research: California oak physiology and drought tolerance
Anna Jiselle Ongjoco
Advisor: Dr. Elsa Ordway
Office: 4th Floor Botany
Research: Plant ecophysiology, global change
Xochitl Ortiz Ross
Advisor: Dan Blumstein
Office: 4802 Life Science Building (LSB)
Research: Long-term fitness consequences of early-life adversity in yellow-bellied marmots
Eliseo Parra
Advisor: Dan Blumstein
Sara Sofia Pedraza Narváez
Advisor: Felipe Zapata
Office: 2nd floor Botany
Research: Tropical biology, evolution and eco-physiology of plants, climate change.
Kelsey Reckling
Advisor: Morgan Tingley
Research: Ornithology, urban ecology, migration, conservation
Amanda Reshke
Advisor: Dr. Peter Nonacs & Dr. Molly Fox
Office: 3rd Floor, Botany Building
Phone: 65031557509
Research: Evolutionary medicine, reproductive health, the microbiome, mental health, behavior
Amanda Robin
Advisor: Peter Nonacs
Research: Animal decision making, cognition, personality, place-based education research, undergraduate research program administration
Nick Russo
Advisor: Thomas Smith
Office: 300 La Kretz Hall (LKH)
Research: Movement ecology, remote sensing, tropical ecology, animal-vegetation feedbacks
Mackenzie Scurka
Advisor: Dan Blumstein
Research: animal behavior, heritability of behavioral traits, human-wildlife conflict
Celine Snedden
Advisor: James Lloyd-Smith
Office: 4000 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Modeling within-host viral infection dynamics
Hayden Speck
Advisor: David Jacobs
Office: 2154 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Evolution of early animals, evolution of development in cnidarians, EvoDevo of moon jellyfish (Aurelia coerulea) life cycle transitions
Hannah Stouter
Advisor: Elsa Ordway
Office: 4th Floor Botany
Research: Effects of climate change and land use change on ecosystems and communities the Congo basin
Ben Tonelli
Advisor: Morgan Tingley
Office: 3rd Floor Botany
Research: Migration and disease
Whitney Tsai Nakashima
Advisor: Michael Alfaro and Thomas Smith
Office: 2153 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB) / 300 La Kretz Hall (LKH)
Research: Avian conservation genomics and evolution
Mary Van Dyke
Advisor: Nathan Kraft
Office: Botany
Research: Plant communities, coexistence, climate change, species interactions
Nidhi Vinod
Advisor: Elsa Ordway and Lawren Sack
Office: 4th Floor Botany
Phone: 540-746-0542
Research: Linking leaf level physiology and functions to forest ecosystems level processes to understand how forests are functioning during climate change
Veronika Vucaj
Advisor: Dr. Peter Nonacs
Office: La Kretz Botany Building
Research: Life-history theory, developmental biology, evolutionary medicine
Richard Wolff
Advisor: Nandita Garud
Joanna Wu
Advisor: Morgan Tingley
Office: 3rd Floor Botany
Research: Conservation, ornithology, ecology
Carolyn Xue
Advisor: Pamela Yeh
Research: antibiotic resistance, urban ecology, urban bird ecology
Heidi Yang
Advisor: Victoria Sork
Office: 4140 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Ecological genomics/epigenomics
Stella Yuan
Advisor: Kirk Lohmueller and Bob Wayne
Research: Conservation genomics and epigenomics
Diego Zapata
Advisor: Victoria Sork
Office: 4140 Terasaki Life Science Building (TLSB)
Research: Landscape genomics; impact of urbanization, climate change, and other disturbances on the fitness of California plant communities
Erick Zerecero Marin
Advisor: Paul Barber
Madeleine Zuercher
Advisor: Gregory Grether and Debra Shier
Office: 4329 Life Science Building (LSB)
Research: Behavioral ecology, conservation, mammalian evolution, field biology
Regina Zweng
Advisor: Peggy Fong
Office: 4111 Life Science Building (LSB)
Research: Impacts of eutrophication on marine and estuarine ecosystems