current Graduate Students
Current graduate students, to add or update your information, please fill out the form here
Mira Abrecht
Advisor: David Jacobs
Office: TLSB 2162
Research: Environmental DNA, genomics of estuarine fish
Ary Amaya
Advisor: Elsa Ordway
Office: Botany 4th Floor
Research: Effects of climate change on urban terrestrial ecosystems using remote sensing, ecological niche modeling, and traditional Indigenous ecological knowledge
Wilmer Amaya-Mejia
Advisor: Pamela Yeh
Office: Botany 2nd Floor
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: TLSB 4140
Phone: 310-794-1431
Research: Local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity of trees in response to climate change, conservation biology
Taylor Bastian
Advisor: Dan Blumstein
Research: Environmental impacts on animal behavior
Austin Betancourt
Advisor: Paul Barber
Office: TLSB 2140
Research: Conservation henomics/marine ecology and evolution
Elizabeth Blackmore
Advisor: James Lloyd-Smith
Office: TLSB 4000
Research: Historical ecology of infectious disease
Marvin Browne
Advisor: Lawren Sack
Office: LS 3218
Research: Prediction and consequences of variation in plant stress tolerance
Brandon Chan
Advisor: Colin Kremer
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: TLSB 4146
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: Vegetation structure and animal-landscape interactions
Christina (Tina) Del Carpio
Advisor: Kirk Lohmueller
Office: LS 4207
Research: Recombination rates and landscapes in canids & STEM graduate education
Carissa DeRanek
Advisor: Elsa Ordway
Eleanor (Ellie) Diamant
Advisor: Pamela Yeh
Office: Botany 2nd Floor
Research: How bird populations respond to strong anthropogenic change
Evan Doughty
Advisor: Jonathan Marcot and Blaire Van Valkenburgh
Office: Botany 310
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: Boyer 660
Research: Emergence of community structure in ecological interactions, particularly mutualisms
Janine Fischer
Advisor: Gregory Grether and Debra Shier
Office: LS 4329
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: LS 4100
Research: Assessing the health of tropical reef communities and evaluating how infectious diseases are impacting these communities
Cynthia Frausto
Advisor: Peter Nonacs
Sara Freimuth
Advisor: Pamela Yeh
Office: Botany 2nd Floor
Research: Urban ecology, evolution, gut microbiome, science communication
Kaija Gahm
Advisor: Noa Pinter-Wollman
Office: Botany 3rd Floor
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: Botany 4th Floor
Research: Traits that affect seed dispersal, community assembly, and patterns of biodiversity and coexistence in Californian grasslands
Katya Gonzalez
Advisor: Michael Alfaro
Office: TLSB
Research: Broadly interested in evolutionary biology, currently focused on human exceptionalism through comparative studies
Shalanda Grier
Advisor: Peggy Fong
Research: Anthropogenic stress, resilience, species interactions, coral reefs
Katie Hannibal
Advisor: Peggy Fong
Phone: 8189424269
Research: Anthropogenic effects on nearshore marine ecosystems, specifically how algal interactions influence community structure
Kenji Hayashi
Advisor: Nathan Kraft
Office: Botany 410
Phone: 310-825-4967
Research: Consequences of competitive interactions in spatially heterogeneous environments for plant species distributions and coexistence
Aidan Howenstine
Advisor: Karen Sears
Office: TLSB 2162
Research: The influence of development on the generation of variation and evolution, with a focus on mammal limbs
Christiane Jacquemetton
Advisor: Blaire Van Valkenburgh
Office: TLSB 2162
Research: Morphology and variation across Canidae
Mark Juhn
Advisor: Michael Alfaro and Blaire Van Valkenburgh
Office: Botany 3rd Floor
Research: Carnivora macroevolution and tanager color evolution
Elizabeth Karan
Advisor: Michael Alfaro
Office: TLSB 2154
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: LS 4114
Research: Population genetics, adaptation, life history, bacteria, microbiomes
Onny Nurrahman Marwayana
Advisor: Paul Barber
Office: TLSB 2140
Phone: 310-889-4552
Research: Enviromental DNA (eDNA) for marine biodiversity in Indonesia
Rosa McGuire
Advisor: Priyanga Amarasekare
Office: Boyer 660
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
Carly Myers
Advisor: Malcolm Gordon
Scott O'Donnell
Advisor: Victoria Sork
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: Lawren Sack
Office: Botany 4th Floor
Research: Plant physiological ecology and anatomy
Xochitl Ortiz Ross
Advisor: Dan Blumstein
Office: LS 4802
Research: Long-term fitness consequences of early-life adversity in yellow-bellied marmots
Eliseo Parra
Advisor: Dan Blumstein
Sara Sofia Pedraza
Advisor: Felipe Zapata
Research: Plant biotic interactions, their relevance for biodiversity maintainance, evolution and effects of climate change.
Amanda Reshke
Advisor: Peter Nonacs and Molly Fox
Office: Botany 3rd Floor
Phone: 6503157509
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: LKH 300
Research: Movement ecology, remote sensing, tropical ecology, animal-vegetation feedbacks
Chris Sayers
Advisor: Morgan Tingley
Office: Botany 310
Research: Spatiotemporal impacts of gold mining on tropical bird communities
Yoonjin Shu
Advisor: Michael Alfaro
Lauren Smith
Advisor: Peggy Fong
Celine Snedden
Advisor: James Lloyd-Smith
Office: TLSB 4000
Research: Modeling within-host viral infection dynamics
Ben Tonelli
Advisor: Morgan Tingley
Office: Botany 3rd Floor
Research: Migration and disease
Whitney Tsai Nakashima
Advisor: Michael Alfaro and Thomas Smith
Office: TLSB 2153 / LKH 300
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: Botany 4th Floor
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
Richard Wolff
Advisor: Nandita Garud
Carolyn Xue
Advisor: Pamela Yeh
Research: Antibiotic resistance, urban ecology, urban bird ecology
Heidi Yang
Advisor: Victoria Sork
Office: TLSB 4140
Research: Ecological genomics/epigenomics
Stella Yuan
Advisor: Kirk Lohmueller and Bob Wayne
Research: Conservation genomics and epigenomics
Diego Zapata
Advisor: Victoria Sork
Office: TLSB 4140
Research: Landscape genomics; impact of urbanization, climate change, and other disturbances on the fitness of California plant communities
Erick Zerecero Marin
Advisor: Paul Barber
Regina Zweng
Advisor: Peggy Fong
Office: LS 4111
Research: Impacts of eutrophication on marine and estuarine ecosystems