I'm a third year doctoral student, working with Dr. Elizabeth Hadly and Dr. Gretchen Daily. I'm taking an evolutionary perpective to understand how and why some species are able to survive human modification of the environment, while others can only survive in unaltered habitats. I'm using two closely related species of Costa Rican terrestrial direct developing frogs as a model, and assessing how genotypic and phenotypic differences between the species correlate with habitat use in the field. Full project description.

Follow @lofrishkoff

I am a third-year doctoral student interested in patterns of diversification and extinction in insular communities. My research focuses on the herpetofauna of the Caribbean, with an emphasis on Lesser Antillean lizard communities. More specifically, I am integrating paleontology with molecular biology in order to understand how diversity has changed over geologic time scales. The natural and cultural history of the Lesser Antilles render it an exemplary model system to study how diversification and extinction processes are influenced by ecological and geological perturbations alike. With this in mind, I hope that my work will inform conservation efforts in this biologically rich region.

Follow @melisabetta

I'm a second year PhD student with broad interests ranging from population diversification and adaptation to ecoimmunology and conservation. I am currently working on a project examining how various aspects of a bat's ecology affect its exposure to parasitism and disease and how this in turn shapes its immunogenetic evolution, looking within populations and across species. By combining field work and genetic techniques, I hope to learn more about the evolution of these ecologically important species which also serve as important vectors and reservoirs of emerging diseases. Before graduate school my research included projects researching macroevolutionary patterns of convergence and phylogenetic signal in the toepads of Anolis lizards and the effect of resource availability and other environmental factors on white blood cells and immune function in tuatara, a threatened, endemic, New Zealand reptile.

Follow @hannahkfrank

I am a second year Ph.D. student interested in evolutionary genetics. Although my interests are broad, I am studying the impact of changing environmental and geologic forces on the population genetics of the tuco-tuco, a rodent genus endemic to South America. Before joining the lab at Stanford, I conducted my undergraduate thesis research at Harvard, where I researched the genetic basis of migration in monarch butterflies, focusing on elucidating the population structure of the two monarch subspecies and determining potential genes contributing to the disparate migratory behaviors of the two subspecies.

I am a second year PhD student studying?pika?species that live in the Himalayas of India and Nepal.??I am using non-invasive genetic techniques, species identification though?pika?pellets, in order to document species presence and?altitudinal?distribution along the length of the Himalayan range.?Additionally, I am collecting some tissues samples in the form of ear punches in order to conduct a larger scale?genomics?study in an effort to identify genes that may be responsible for adaptations to high elevation?hypoxic?conditions.

I am a first year PhD student interested in the origin and conservation of mammalian diversity, with an emphasis on the evolutionary trends of insular mammals. My research focuses on the endemic eulipotyphlans ("true" mammalian insectivores such as shrews and hedgehogs) of the Greater Antilles: the extant, endangered solenodons and extinct nesophontes. My undergraduate thesis at Cornell used phylogeography and population genetics to determine that insular muskrats in the Gulf of ME were introduced by humans.

Follow @AlexisMychajliw

My research centers on the intersection of biodiversity and ecosystem services in tropical countryside. More specifically, I'm interested in how agricultural intensification impacts bird communities and associated ecosystem services. Comparing bird communities across regions in Costa Rica yielded the key insight that beta diversity is retained in low-intensity land use but is lost rapidly with further intensification. Similarly, I found that community structure and stability of several functional guilds are resilient to low-intensity, but not high-intensity, land use.

These guilds provide landowners key ecosystem services. Coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil, and the coffee berry borer (Hypothenemus hampei) is its primary insect pest. In a replicated exclosure experiment, I discovered that both bats and birds consume the berry borer, conferring an economic benefit to coffee farmers. Future work will attempt to attribute pest-control services to individual species through DNA analysis of bird and bat feces. By marrying species-specific pest control with existing bird distribution models, I hope to create a spatially-explicit model for bird-mediated pest control services across tropical countryside.

I am a doctoral student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Program at Stanford University working with Gretchen C. Daily and Paul R. Ehrlich in the Center for Conservation Biology. My research primarily focuses on quantifying the populations, community assemblages, and species interactions of organisms in human-dominated landscapes under the framework of countryside biogeography. Much of my work centers on predictive models, habitat use, and metapopulation and metacommunity dynamics of birds and bats in Coto Brus, Costa Rica. This work is largely informed by the need to crystallize a firm link between diversity of life on the planet, conservation biology, ecosystem services, and natural capital. Specifically, I am interested in fine-scale tradeoffs between the conservation of biodiversity and agricultural production in the tropics.

Additionally, with different disciplinary goals and methods, I am interested in reframing the red in tooth and claw narrative of the natural world by examining cooperation between animal communities, social groups, and genders. In collaboration with Joan E. Roughgarden I am investigating the evolution and ecology of social reproductive behavior under the framework of social selection, an alternative to sexual selection theory and its corollaries. I am interested in relating the evolutionary behavioral ecologies of mutualism, behavior in the face of resource limitations, and social reproductive behavior with the human predicaments of consumption, population policy, and gender inequality.

I am a visiting graduate student from the Palumbi lab at the Hopkins Marine Station at Stanford who is thrilled to be sitting with the Hadly Lab for the year! Broadly, my research interests are in the intersection between genomics and conservation policy. More specifically, I am interested in how corals respond on a molecular level to changes in their environments and how this can be used in marine policy to protect coral reefs in the face of climate change. I have also worked in terrestrial systems in northern Tanzania and western Madagascar studying a range of topics from phylogeography to applications of DNA as a tool for identifying species in the bushmeat trade to the utility of economic cooking stoves for health and environmental education.

I am a master student in a European program, doing my thesis in the Hadly Lab now. I am interested in studing how population respond to ecological stress. In the past, I had done some research in evolution and diversity of Extremophile.

I volunteer in the Hadly Lab working on geologic maps and paleo climate data, currently focusing on regions of the Caribbean and Central America. I graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 2009 with my bachelors degree in Earth Science and Physical Anthropology. It is wonderful to continually learn from those around me and challenge perspectives. The opportunity to study systems with an interdisciplinary approach, exploring the biotic and abiotic relationships is a key motivator in my research. I very much enjoyed working with everyone in the Hadly Lab last year and am looking forward to the new academic year.

I'm a Hadly Lab undergraduate emeritus. I spent 4 glorious years determining how soil may distribute the morphologically diverse pocket gophers species across northern California. My thesis demonstrated that gophers respond to soil clay, density, and linear extensibility. The last property encodes whether soil cracks and hardens in a dry climate. This has implications for how the ranges gopher species have changed in the past and underscores how climate change will impact any soil-dependent organisms in the future.

Since graduating in 2011, I spent the next academic year teaching the Human Biology Core as a Course Associate. This year I'm designing an educational game to teach cell signaling pathways to undergrads - stay tuned for "Cancer Avenger!" I'm also continuing research - Currently, quantifying individual gopher morphology to further unravel the connections between digging adaptations and the type of soil inhabited.

Follow @aemarcy

I am broadly interested in evolution, animal behavior, and ecology. My undergraduate research project at UC Berkeley focused on the cranial morphology of American pika, a small mammal that is restricted to montane habitat. I am currently working on several projects that explore the relationhsip between climate and population dynamics.

I am also the lab manager and web designer/webmaster. Please contact me regards to matters related to this website.

Follow @ChengLilyLi

I went to college at the rival East Bay university, but I have been in the Department of Biology since 2007. Please contact me with urgent lab matters.

Department of Biology
Gilbert Building, Rm. 228
371 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-5020

650.723.6311 (Phone), 650.723.6132 (Fax)

I am a senior at Stanford University, majoring in Biology (EcoEvo) and Archaeology. I am studying prehistoric and modern populations of mountain beaver (Aplodontia), examining the morphology and spatial distribution of the genus.

I am a junior planning to majoring in computer science. ?I assisted Danny with his research in Costa Rica in 2011. ?Currently, I am working on an independent project investigating the dispersal patterns of the coffee berry borer beetle.

I am a junior at Stanford University, majoring in Biology and interested in how the environment affects human health and well-being. My research focuses primarily in Latin America, and my projects have included biological pest control and parasitology.

I am a junior majoring in Geological and Environmental Sciences with a minor in German Studies. I am interested in studying the fossil record of mass extinctions, and my current research project focuses on late Pleistocene tiger salamander remains from Snowmass, CO.

I am a sophomore at Stanford University majoring in Biology (Eco/Evo) with a minor in Arab Studies. I am extremely interested in anole phylogenetics and will study anoles with Melissa, as well as hopefully partaking in any other reptile and amphibian projects.

I am a sophomore at Stanford University planning to major in Biology (Eco/Evo) with a minor in Computer Science. I am interested in the area of bioinformatics as applied to research involving prehistoric DNA, and hope to design my own project in the near future.

I am a sophomore, majoring in Electrical Engineering potentially with a minor in Biology. In the future, I hope to apply engineering techniques to researching animals, as well as to draw inspiration from the natural world for engineering applications.

I am a freshman, undeclared as of now, but with interests in biology, computer science, and product design. I will be working with Melissa and Alexis this summer researching anoles and selenodons, and am extremely interested in applying what I learn to conservation.