People

Bates College is an entirely undergraduate institution.  As befits a true liberal arts college, only a few of the students in my lab will choose to pursue a career in scientific research.  Thus, this research experience will mean quite different things to different students.

A Sampling of Past Undergraduate Projects

  • Sophie Warren – meta-analysis of major histocompatibility complex evolution. See our Molecular Ecology paper!
  • Ben Stratton – evolution of parasitic egg rejection. See Ben’s Current Zoology paper!
  • Bridget Tweedie – coccidian parasites of seabirds.
  • Emily Woods – cestode parasites of seabirds.
  • Laura Rand and Rosie May – MHC evolution in Leach’s Storm-petrel. See their Immunogenetics paper!
  • Kinsey Moser and Jacob Freedman – acoustic monitoring of avian migration ecology (with Jeff Wells).
  • Jack Kiely – interpretive education in nature preserves.
  • Ben Tonelli – modeling the role of migratory birds in the dispersal and range expansion of black-legged ticks. See Ben’s Ticks & Tick-borne Diseases paper!
  • Ryan Mahar – development of spatial cognition in seabirds.
  • Misha Copeland – conflicts between property rights and endangered species conservation.
  • Meredith Miles – testing whether individual Chipping Sparrows modulate their song quality in response to simulated challenges by high- and low-quality rivals.
  • Carla Tilchin   Carla developed a bacteria-killing assay and used it to test whether two songbird species differ in their likelihood of serving as reservoir hosts for Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease.
  • Kaitlin Wellens     In collaboration with colleague Steve Latta (National Aviary), Kaitlin used a dataset from the aftermath of the 1982-83 El Nino to explore spatial aspects of colony formation in blue-footed boobies in the Galapagos.
  • Alexis Will     As a Bucknell undergraduate, Alexis worked with me, Duane Griffin (BU Geography), and scientists at the USFWS Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge.  Alexis used long-term data on seabird reproductive success (which she helped collect during two summers of field work in Alaska) to test relationships between climate and fish distributions and seabird reproductive success.
  • John Cullum and Kate Ballentine    Along with Bucknell MS student Daniel Hanley, this group was testing the relationship between dietary antioxidants and egg coloration in captive chickens, as part of a larger test of a sexual selection hypothesis for blue-green egg coloration in birds. See their Functional Ecology paper!