Past Donnelley Postdoctoral Associates

Sponsor: Jordan Peccia, Thomas E. Golden, Jr. Professor and Chair of Chemical & Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering & Applied Science

Research: Hannah Greenwald Healy received her B.S. in Environmental Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Hannah’s doctoral research focused on health-relevant microorganisms in engineered water systems, including opportunistic pathogens in drinking water plumbing and SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. As a YIBS Gaylord Donnelley Postdoctoral Associate, Hannah studied abiotic and biotic factors influencing the biodiversity, resilience to invasion, and antibiotic resistance of biofilms, with a focus on biofilms in healthcare settings. 

Sponsor: Martha Muñoz, Assistant Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Zoology (Herpetology), Yale Peabody Museum

Research: Sina is interested in understanding the dynamics of reproductive isolation in adaptive radiations. At YIBS, her research focused on elucidating the environmental drivers of speciation in a radiation of anole lizards from the island of Hispaniola. Connecting species’ ecology with population genomic, behavioral and developmental approaches, she aims at determining how environmental gradients affect population divergence and the progression towards complete reproductive isolation.

Nohemi Huanca-Nuñez, Ph.D.

Sponsor: Liza Comita, Professor of Tropical Forest Ecology, Yale School of the Environment 

Co-director, Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture

Research: Nohemi’s research focuses on plant ecology, plant-animal interactions, and the understanding of mechanisms driving species diversity, distribution, and forest regeneration after natural and human disturbances. At Yale, Nohemi  focused on the interaction between above-ground and below-ground functionality and the role of root traits in shaping composition in tree communities recovering from human disturbance.

Karen Chen, Ph.D. 

Personal Website

Sponsor: Karen Seto, Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science, Yale School of the Environment

Research: Karen Chen is a quantitative geographer studying how urban land cover and form change over time and their impacts on human well-being. Working with Prof. Karen Seto, she will use the synergy of deep learning, remote sensing, and Geographic Information Systems to characterize the 3-D built environment and urbanization in the Global South.

Sponsor: Luke Sanford, Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy and Governance, Yale School of the Environment 

Research: Cesar is an environmental social scientist interested in combining quantitative methods and qualitative sources to understand the political economy of deforestation. His doctoral research employs satellite imagery, administrative data, archival sources, and quasi-experimental empirical designs to study the drivers of community-based ecosystems stewardship in Mexico. He also studies the politics of governmental climate action in a comparative perspective, particularly surrounding fossil fuels subsidies.

Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara 

Sponsor: Casey Dunn, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Informatics, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

Research: Natasha is an evolutionary biologist interested in understanding how organismal diversity evolves and the mechanisms that can constrain or facilitate complex evolutionary outcomes across species. At Yale she will focus on understanding the mechanisms that drive the evolution of complex life cycles using the polyp and jellyfish life stages of cnidarians. The goal of her work is to better understand the relationship between jellyfish reduction and polyp specialization and investigate whether disruption of cell differentiation can serve as a developmental mechanism underlying the loss of complexity. The loss of complexity in one phase of a life cycle is often associated with an increase in another phase of the life cycle. Overall, her work investigates the dynamics of evolutionary constraints, how these shape changes in organismal complexity, and the developmental basis of those changes.

Sponsor: Thomas Near, Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Maya works at the intersection of Life and Earth sciences to understand how changes to Earth’s surface over geologic timescales influence the distribution and evolution of life. Maya uses computational models as well as geologic and genomic datasets to integrate disparate disciplines. Her graduate training was in geomorphology with a focus on “river capture”, an abrupt change in flow direction when one river segment forges a new connection with a channel in another basin. Geomorphic processes, like river capture, are hypothesized to influence the evolution of aquatic organisms, yet testing such hypotheses requires the integration of geologic and genomic data. At Yale, she will be investigating how river incision has shaped the landscape of the Appalachian Mountains as well as the evolution of the aquatic taxa in the region. She is broadly interested in understanding the ways in which tectonic, climatic and geomorphic processes influence the evolution of life.

Assistant Professor, Department of Earth, Ocean, & Atmospheric Science, Florida State University

Tallahassee, Florida 

Sponsor: Lidya Tarhan, Assistant Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Research: Thomas’s research focuses on understanding how climate impacts trends in biodiversity both in the modern ocean and the geologic past. He uses a combination of tools in his research including stratigraphy, paleontology, and organismal ecophysiology to answer questions such as how changes in the redox structure and temperature of Earth’s oceans influenced early animal evolution. In addition, his work has focused on understanding how warming oceans in the coming centuries will impact the range size of species and latitudinal diversity patterns. At Yale, Thomas will be focused on understanding how climate change will impact the physiology of seafloor sediment-dwelling animals that are found throughout the global ocean. These animals play a critical role in mediating several key marine biogeochemical cycles, including the coupled carbon-phosphorous-oxygen cycle, the sulfur cycle, and organic carbon burial.

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Princeton University

Princeton, New Jersey

James Lichtenstein, Ph.D.

Sponsor: Oswald Schmitz, Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology, Yale School of the Environment 

Research: James has spent the last six years investigating the causes and consequences of individual behavioral variation. At YIBS he will study how ecosystems drive the evolution of diversity in predator behavior and how the evolution of behavioral diversity affects ecosystems. Species-diverse ecosystems are predicted to constrain the evolution of trait diversity within predator species, and this trait diversity increases how many prey they kill, thereby increasing plant growth. James will test this using experimental evolution to create predatory insect populations with low or high levels of diversity in the behaviors they use to hunt prey. These predators will then be deployed in meadows to test how their behavioral traits affect ecosystem structure. Teasing apart these intricate eco-evolutionary dynamics could help explain how ecosystems function, potentially allowing us to use artificial evolution to shape ecosystems.

Visiting Assistant Professor of Biology, Kenyon College

Gambier, Ohio

Sponsor: Jessica Thompson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Research: Advait will be studying the impacts of human hunting and climate change on the megafaunal extinction in India. He will use tools including faunal analyses, stable isotopes, bone surface modification, and geochronology to understand the anthropogenic and environmental context of this extinction. The recent extinction of large terrestrial vertebrates has been the focus of paleontological, archeological, and ecological research for decades, but the causes are poorly understood in some of the most biodiverse regions of the world, like the Indian Subcontinent. India unlike large parts of the world, retains several species of large mammals such as rhinos and elephants. Advait’s goal is to understand why so many large species have survived in this region.

Assistant Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology in the Department of Natural History, Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida

Sponsor: Pincelli Hull, Assistant Professor, Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences 

Research: Catherine is a paleoceanographer and micropaleontologist. Marine microfossils are one of the richest records of past life on Earth, and Catherine’s career has been focused on understanding how microfossil-forming organisms record their environment and how that record can help us to understand climates of the past and how climate and the biosphere interact on long time scales. Prior to her move to Yale, Catherine completed her MSc at the University of Bristol and PhD at the University of California Davis and spent time as a postdoctoral associate at the University of South Carolina.

Assistant Professor, Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University 

Raleigh, North Carolina

Sponsor: Alvaro Sanchez, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology/Microbial Sciences Institute

Research: Maria is an evolutionary ecologist fascinated with bacteria, fungi, and plants. Maria is interested in how ecological dynamics affect evolutionary pathways and how evolution transforms an organism’s ecological interactions. Currently, Maria is a Donnelley Postdoctoral Environmental Fellow working with Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Professor Alvaro Sanchez in the Sanchez lab. Maria’s research examines the importance of community context and global warming in microbial community structure, function, and evolution. Additionally, Maria is interested in microbial communities associated with plants and their roles in plant evolution and adaptation to climate change. 

Assistant Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine

Irvine, California 

Sponsor: David Skelly, Frank R. Oastler Professor of Ecology, Director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History; Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Research: Freya is an aquatic ecologist who uses experiments, field data, and statistical models to describe ecosystems varying in size from ponds to the Laurentian Great Lakes. Freya has a B.S. in Biology from the University of Wisconsin, a M.S. in aquatic ecology from Miami University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in ecology. Before starting her postdoc at Yale, Freya spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research at the University of Michigan. Currently, Freya is a Donnelley Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab Dr. David Skelly, a professor at the Yale School of the Environment. She is using wood frogs as a model system to explore questions about population ecology and natural selection.

Research Ecologist, Columbia Environmental Research Center for the US Geological Survey

Columbia, Missouri  

Sponsor: Michael Donoghue, Sterling Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Research: Anthony Baniaga joins us from the aromatic coastal scrub and chaparral of Southern California. His postdoctoral research at Yale focuses on documenting how whole genome duplication affects plant form, function, and ecophysiology. Anthony worked as a field botanist for the US Forest Service after receiving his BS in biology with a concentration in ecology at California Polytechnic State University and was awarded his PhD from the University of Arizona.

Anthony’s research at Yale focuses on how whole genome duplication affects plant form, function, and ecophysiology using the taxonomically difficult viburnum denatum species complex (Adoxaceae) as a model. Building upon previous work in this system, Anthony is currently documenting the distribution of polyploid populations in this complex. Through the support of the Donnelley Fellowship and the mentorship of Professor Michael Donoghue in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Anthony will ultimately link how having an extra set of chromosomes leads to changes in leaf morphology, function, and where these plants are able to inhabit.

Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, UCLA

Curator of the Mildred E. Mathias Herbarium, UCLA

Los Angeles, California 

Sponsor: Craig Brodersen, Associate Professor of Plant Physiological Ecology

Research: Morgan Furze is a Donnelley Postdoctoral Fellow working with Professor Craig Brodersen in the Yale School of the Environment. Her research in the Brodersen Lab focuses on whole-plant carbon dynamics and its implications for how plants function in response to global change. She integrates tools from plant physiology, forest ecology, and isotope biogeochemistry with micro-CT imaging to explore carbohydrate storage and allocation in ecologically and economically important plants, especially trees. Morgan received her BA from Bucknell University and PhD from Harvard University.

USDA-NIFA Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California, Davis

Davis, California 

Jessica Kenigson, Ph.D. 

Sponsor: Mary-Louise Timmermans, Professor, Earth & Planetary Sciences

Research: Jessica completed her Ph.D. on causes of sea level variability in the North Atlantic Ocean in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2018. She also completed an M.S. in Applied Mathematics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Jessica’s research at Yale focuses on how changes in the Arctic Ocean circulation influence the global ocean circulation and Earth’s climate. She analyzes ocean and atmospheric measurements spanning decades to understand the far-reaching consequences of Arctic Ocean change, including influencing sea level rise in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Research Associate, University of Colorado Boulder 

Boulder, Colorado 

Mahlet Garedew, Ph.D. 

Personal Website

July 2018 - June 2020

Sponsor: Paul Anastas, Professor, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Prior to joining the Center for Green Chemistry and Engineering at Yale, Mahlet worked with Prof. Saffron and Prof. Jackson at Michigan State University where she received her Ph.D. in Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering with a research focus on conversion of biomass to value-added intermediates using pyrolysis and electrocatalysis. More specifically, she investigated the effectiveness of a ruthenium catalyst for improving energy content and stability of phenolic compounds derived from the thermochemical degradation of lignin. Additionally, Mahlet was also part of the Environmental Science and Policy Program (ESPP) and a recipient the ESPP climate, food, energy and water (C-FEW) summer fellowship. Through her involvement in the ESPP program, Mahlet had the opportunity to explore the interdisciplinary aspect of her research. 

Outside of her research work, Mahlet enjoys working with students and is passionate about mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue careers in STEM fields. While in her graduate program, Mahlet volunteered her time working as a tutor and mentor with programs such as Engineering and Science Success Academy, Summer Research Opportunities Program, and College Assistance Migrant Program at Michigan State University. 

Lab Manager, Air Company

Princeton, New Jersey

Leslie James Robbins, Ph.D. 

Personal Website

Sponsor: Noah Planavsky, Assistant Professor, Department of Geology & Geophysics

Research: Leslie completed his PhD in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta, before coming to Yale in the fall of 2018 to conduct his postdoctoral research. He is a geochemist and geobiologist, whose doctoral research focused on using banded iron formations to examine the trace element chemistry of Earth’s early oceans and how changes in trace element abundances may be linked to the evolution of Earth’s biosphere.

Here at Yale, Leslie’s research is focused on developing new methods for assessing marine pH conditions in the geological past. The aim is to provide additional constraints marine pH, and by extension atmospheric CO₂ levels, during Cenozoic climate events such as the Middle Eocene Climate Optimum.  This research utilizes novel isotopic measurements and surface complexation modeling of iron oxides. Leslie is working with Dr. Noah Planavsky in the Department of Geology and Geophysics. 

Assistant Professor, University of Regina

Regina, Saskatchewan 

Karolina Heyduk, Ph.D. 

Personal Website 

Sponsor: Erika Edwards, Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology 

Research: Originally from the Midwest, Karolina completed a bachelors of science in Economics and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2011. From there she went to the University of Georgia, where she graduated with a PhD in Plant Sciences in 2015. Karolina worked as a post-doc for two years at UGA before coming to Yale.

Her research is on the evolution of specialized photosynthetic pathways in plants. She integrates plant physiology, genomics, and phylogenetics to understand how modifications to plant photosynthesis arose, and how they are maintained today. Karolina is working with Dr. Erika Edwards in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Assistant Professor, Department of Botany, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Honolulu, Hawaii 

Sponsor: Derek Briggs, Professor, Department of Geology & Geophysics

Research: Luke completed his PhD on fossil annelids at the University of Bristol in 2017. Prior to coming to Yale he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto in Canada. 

Luke’s research at Yale focuses on understanding the origin of animal body plans, with particular focus on spiralians (molluscs, segmented worms and their close relatives). Much of this research is on fossil material from the Cambrian Period (541-485 million years ago) as well as comparative work on the morphology and phylogeny of extant organisms. 

Junior Research Fellow, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford 

Oxford, England  

Maria Natalia Umana Medina, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Liza Comita, Assistant Professor, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. 

Research: Natalia’s research at Yale, aims to identify ecological processes driving shifts in tree community composition and structure along a rainfall gradient in a tropical forest in Panama.

Assistant Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan 

Ann Arbor, Michigan  

Josh Daskin, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Director of Conservation, Archbold Biological Station 

Venus, Florida 

Ines Zucker, Ph.D. 

Personal Website 

Research: Dr. Ines Zucker’s postdoctoral research in the Elimelech research group focuses on the development of nanotechnology-based solutions for water decontamination, as well as environmental and health impacts of nanotechnology.

Senior Lecturer, School of Mechanical Engineering and Porter School of Environmental Studies, Tel Aviv University 

Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel 

Sponsor: Michael Donoghue, Sterling Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Co-evolution of ecological adaptations and geographical range.

Assistant Professor of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis

St. Louis, Missouri 

Oliver Griffith, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Gunter Wagner, Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Identifying the processes that underpin the evolution of pregnancy in vertebrates, including reptiles; understanding how pregnancy and specifically the evolution of a placenta interacts with the environment, and how this interaction may help or hurt organisms in a changing climate.

Lecturer, Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University 

Sydney, Australia 

Chun Ho (Jason) Lam, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Paul Anastas, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: “A path to fossil-free chemical feedstocks to alleviate global warming: Electrocatalytic upgrading of depolymerized lignin and industrial waste to value-added products”

Assistant Professor, School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong 

Hong Kong SAR, China 

Charlotte O’Brien, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Mark Pagani, Professor, Department of Geology & Geophysics

Research: Estimating global temperatures for the late Oligocene Epoch, which occurred from about 33.9 to 23 million years ago

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Geology, University College London 

London, England 

Adam Roddy, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Craig Brodersen, Assistant Professor, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Evolutionary transitions in the structure-function relationships of flowers

Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University 

Miami, Florida

Lindsey Swierk, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: David Skelly, Professor, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Understanding amphibian responses to suburbanization

Assistant Research Professor, State University of New York, Binghamton

Director of Scientific Research, The Morpho Institute 

Associate Director of Research, Amazon Conservatory for Tropical Studies 

Binghamton, New York 

Lauren Smith-Ramesh, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Oswald Schmitz, Oastler Professor of Population and Community Ecology, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Do invasive plants that promote predators fundamentally alter ecosystem functioning?

Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis 

Knoxville, Tennessee 

Erin Saupe, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Derek Briggs, G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology & Geophysics

Research: Evolution and climate change: Elucidating the controls on species’ responses to 4myr of environmental change in the Atlantic Coastal Plain, USA

Associate Professor of Palaeobiology, University of Oxford 

Oxford, England  

Peter Cowman, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Thomas Near, Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Mechanistic processes and genomic evolution in marine biodiversity hotspots: Do coral reefs promote diversity through accelerated rates of molecular change?

Research Fellow in Ecosystem Dynamics, ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University,

Queensland, Australia

Sara Kuebbing, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Mark Bradford, Professor, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Testing predictions in field and laboratory experiments on invasive functional trait analysis, litter decomposition and field litter-addition

Research Director, Yale Applied Science Synthesis Program 

New Haven, Connecticut 

Giovanna Carpi, Ph.D

Sponsor: Maria Diuk-Wassar, Assistant Professor, Yale School of Public Health

Research: Linking vertebrate diversity with tick-borne pathogen species and genome-wide diversity

Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University 

West Lafayette, Indiana 

Sponsor: Michelle Bell, Assistant Professor, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Research to examine how drought in the United States affects levels of airborne particles and thereby impacts the risk of mortality and illness for respiratory diseases

Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota School of Public Health 

Minneapolis, Minnesota 

Sponsor: David Vasseur, Assistant Professor, Yale Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Understanding the mechanisms governing the distribution and abundance of the more than 8 million species that inhabit earth

Business Intelligence Manager, Zions Bancorporation

Salt Lake City, Utah 

Sponsor: David Skelly, Professor of Ecology, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Linking prey behavior to population and ecosystem-level pattern:  What drives variation in the strength of risk effects among temperate ungulates?

Assistant Professor of Wildlife Management and Policy, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California Berkeley 

Berkeley, California 

Bridget Nugent, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Suzanne Alonzo, Assistant Professor, Yale Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Understanding the proximate mechanisms that give rise to variation within and across species and thereby provide a substrate for selection and diversification that is critical to understanding the origins of biodiversity in wild species that may help to explain phenotypic variation in other organisms through comparative studies

Research Program Lead, Office of Women’s Health, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 

Baltimore, Maryland 

Sponsor: Michael Donoghue, Sterling Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Community assembly, niche evolution, and the future of alpine plant communities

Principal Investigator & Senior Scientist, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center 

Edgewater, Maryland

Isabelle Kruta, Ph.D.
 

Sponsor: Derek Briggs, G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology & Geophyics

Research: Role of ammonites in the Mesozoic food web

Research Associate, American Museum of Natural History

New York, New York 

Matthew Niemiller, Ph.D.
 

Sponsor: Thomas Near, Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences, The University Alabama in Hunstville 

Huntsville, Alabama 

Jay Zarnetske, Ph.D.

Lab Website
 

Sponsors: James Saiers and Peter Raymond, Professors at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Watershed hydrology, aquatic ecology, ecosystem informatics, hydrogeology, stable isotope biogeochemistry and global water resource issues

Associate Professor, Environmental Hydrology & Ecohydrology, Michigan State University 

East Lansing, Michigan 

Sponsor: Robert Bailis, Professor, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Associate Professor, Environmental Geography Research Centre, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)

Mexico City, Mexico

Daniel Rosauer, Ph.D. 

Personal Website

Sponsor: Walter Jetz, Associate Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Biodiversity informatics, macroevolution and conservation science

Assistant Manager of Land Sector Carbon Modelling, Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources 

Canberra, Australia 

Nina Lehr, Ph.D.
 

Sponsor: Jeffrey Townsend, Associate Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: The evolution of gene expression underlying sexual development in fungi

Postdoctoral Associate, Strobel Lab, Department of Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry, Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut 

Valerie Fuchs, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Julie Zimmerman, Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering

Research: Optimizing ecosystem benefits through water systems infrastructure location

Water Resources Engineer, Brown and Caldwell

Seattle, Washington 

Matthew Walsh, Ph.D.​​
 

Lab Website

Sponsor: David Post, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: The link between environmental heterogeneity and evolutionary change in coastal lake ecosystems

Associate Professor of Biology, Department of Biology, University of Texas Arlington

Arlington, Texas

Andrea Gloria-Soria, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Leo Buss, Professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Characterization of the allelic variation on the allorecognition complex of Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus

Assistant Agricultural Scientist, Department of Environmental Sciences, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station 

New Haven, Connecticut 

Nicholas Longrich, Ph.D.

Lab Website

Professor of Geology and Geophysics and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and Vertebrate Zoology, Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History

Senior Lecturer, Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Bath

Bath, United Kingdom 

Professor, Department of Anthropology, Hunter College CUNY

New York, New York 

Allan & Inger Osberg Associate Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Washington

Seattle, Washington 

Curator, Invertebrate Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Los Angeles, California 

Science Communicator & Research Associate, Herpetology Collection, Carnegie Museum of Natural History 

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 

Assistant Professor, University of Arizona 

Tucson, Arizona 

Associate Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 

Jerusalem, Israel 

Associate Professor, Florida Medical Entomology Lab, University of Florida

Vero Beach, Florida

Professor and Head of Biology, Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University,

University Park, Pennsylvania 

Margaret Evans, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Assistant Professor of Dendrochronology, University of Arizona

Tucson, Arizona

Associate Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Urbana, Illinois 

Craig Layman, Ph.D.

Lab Website

Sponsor: David Post, Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: To address (1) does ecosystem size affect food chain length in Caribbean estuaries, and if so (2) which measure(s) of ecosystem size (e.g. water volume of estuaries, catchment surface area, amount of tidal flow, or “resource “shed” – the total area from which an ecosystem derives resources) is most useful in accounting for differences in FCL.

Senior Fellow, Center for Energy, Environment, and Sustainability, Wake Forest University 

Winston-Salem, North Carolina 

Research Professor, Department of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University  

Raleigh, North Carolina 

Gregory Dietl, Ph.D.

Sponsor: Derek Briggs, Professor, Department of Geology & Geophysics

Research: Circumstances under which evolution occurs with particular interest in arms races between species in evolution

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University

Ithaca, New York 

Stephen Meyers, Ph.D.
 

Lab Website
 

October 2003 - September 2005

Sponsor: Mark Pagani, Professor, Geology & Geophysics

Research: Quantifying Holocene climate response to the North Atlantic oscillation; the origin and stability of centennial-millennial scale cyclicity in quaternary

Vilas Distinguished Professor, Department of Geoscience, University of Wisconsin, Madison

Madison, Wisconsin

Benjamin Twining, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Gaboury Benoit, Professor, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Use of a combination of synchrotron-based x-ray fluorescence microscopy, AAS/and/or ICP-MS, and voltammetric techniques to study the factors controlling the accumulation of metals by estuarine biota

Senior Research Scientist & Henry L. and Grace Doherty Vice President for Education, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences

East Boothbay, Maine

Amy Russell, Ph.D.
 

Personal Website

Sponsor: Anne Yoder, Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Evolutionary history and biogeography of chameleons in a megadiversity hotspot

Associate Professor, Department of Biology, Grand Valley State University

Allendale, Michigan 

Susanna Remold, Ph.D.

Sponsor: Paul Turner, Professor, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Environmental heterogeneity and the evolutions of genetic architecture in viruses; career consequences of expertise with mammalian pathogens

Department Chair & Professor, Biological Sciences, Center for Pathogen Research & Training (CPRT), UMass Lowell 

Lowell, Massachusetts 

Klaus Meiners, Ph.D.

Sponsor: John Wettlaufer, Professor, Geology & Geophysics

Research: The ecology of frozen oceans - controls on primary production in sympagic communities

Research Scientist, Sea Ice Ecology, Australian Antarctic Division’s Climate Processes and Change program & Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Center’s Ecosystem Impacts program

Sponsor: Karl K. Turekian, Sterling Professor of Geology & Geophysics

Research: Paleoceanographic and climate change reconstruction over various time scales

Lecturer, Interdisciplinary/Environmental Studies, California State University, Dominguez Hills

Dominguez Hills, California 

Sponsor: Menachem Elimelech, Roberto C. Goizueta Professor of Chemical Engineering; Professor, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Bacterial transport in aquatic systems; interpreting microbial deposition patterns

Lecturer, Civil Engineering & Construction Engineering Management Department, California State University at Long Beach

Long Beach, CA 

Sponsor: Gisella Caccone, Director, ECOSAVE Conservation Genetics Laboratory; Lecturer, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Evolution and conservation of Giant Galápagos Tortoises; patterns of diversification in Amazonian fishes

Professor, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University

Adelaide, South Australia

Campbell Webb, Ph.D.
 

Personal Website

Sponsors: Mark Ashton, Professor of Silviculture and Forest Ecology, Director of School Forests; and Michael Donoghue, G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Comparative phylogenetic structure of rain forest tree communities

Research Associate,

University of Alaska, Museum of the North, Herbarium

Fairbanks, AK

Claudio Ciofi, Ph.D.

Sponsors: Dr. Gisella Caccone, ECOSAVE Conservation Genetics Laboratory and Lecturer, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology; and Jeffrey Powell, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Research: Genetics and ecology of island reptiles; established long-term collaboration with both US and foreign Institutions aimed at the management and conservation of endangered species

Associate Professor, Department of Biology, University of Florence

Firenze, Italy

Ofer Ovadia, Ph.D.

Lab Website

Sponsor: Oswald Schmitz, Oastler Professor of Population & Community Ecology and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs,  School of Forestry & Environmental Studies; Professor,  Ecology/Evolutionary Biology

Research: Effect of state-dependent decision making of individual herbivores on food web dynamics

Professor & Chair, Department of Life Sciences, Ben‑Gurion University of the Negev

Be’er Sheva, Israel

Douglas Gollin, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Professor Robert Evenson, Economic Growth Center

Research: Impact of international agricultural research on the sustainable production of crops; management of materials in agricultural gene banks

Professor of Development Economics, Department of International Development, Oxford University

Oxford, England

Joseph Kiesecker, Ph.D.

Sponsor: Professor David Skelly, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Disease ecology – investigating the influence of fungal pathogens on the distribution of larval amphibians and dynamics of their communities

Lead Scientist, Conservation Lands Team, The Nature Conservancy

Fort Collins, Colorado 

Past YIBS Postdoctoral Associates

Federico Spada, Ph.D.

Personal Website

Sponsor: Sabatino Sofia, Professor, Astronomy

Research: Solar structural variability and its influence on Earth climate

Research Scientist, Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research 

Göttingen Area, Germany 

Sponsor: Jordan Peccia, Assistant Professor, Environmental Engineering

Research: Microalgae lipid analysis and bioinformatics

Assistant Professor, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Bogaziçi University

Istanbul, Turkey

Li-Qing, Jiang, Ph.D.
 

Personal Website

Sponsor: Peter Raymond, Associate Professor, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: The impact of seasonal hypoxia on carbon dioxide in large estuarine systems – a case study of the Long Island Sound

Assistant Research Scientist, 
Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites, University of Maryland

College Park, Maryland

Christopher Clark, Ph.D.

Lab Website

June 1, 2009 - May 31, 2011

Sponsor: Rick Prum, William Coe Robinson Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB), Professor at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies 

Research: The mechanics and diversity of feather-generated sounds in birds

Professor, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, University of California Riverside

Riverside, California 

Philip Larese-Casanova, Ph.D.
 

Lab Website

Sponsor: Ruth Blake, Professor, Department of Geology & Geophysics

Research: Improving bioremediation of groundwater contamination using

δ 18O stable isotope signatures

Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University

Boston, Massachusetts

Sponsor: James Saiers, Professor of Hydrology and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and Professor of Chemical Engineering

Research: Determining the role played by hydrological events in mediating dissolved organic matter (DOM) dynamics and related in-stream processes

Research Scientist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Brandon, Manitoba

Chad Vecitis, Ph.D.
 

Lab Website

Sponsor: Menachem Elimelech, Roberto C. Goizueta Professor of Chemical Engineering; Chairman, Chemical Engineering & Director of the Environmental Engineering Program; Professor, School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Anti-microbial activity of single-walled carbon nanotubes, with investigations into membrane stress mediated toxicity

Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering, 
School of Engineering & Applied Sciences & Center for the Environment, Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Alexander Jih-Pai Lin, Ph.D.

Sponsor: Derek Briggs, William Beinecke Professor of Geology & Geophysics

Research: The uniqueness of Cambrian paleoecology and closure of the Cambrian taphonomic window

Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University

Taipei, Taiwan

Linda Puth, Ph.D.

Sponsor: Professor David Skelly
School of Forestry & Environmental Studies

Research: Putting the parts together: A holistic treatment of invasion

Lecturer in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut