We are very proud to announce that Alex successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on February 27, 2020. His dissertation was entitled “The Chemical Ecology of a Hybridizing Chickadee System: Olfaction and Reproductive Isolation.” Way to go, Alex!
Chickadees can smell! Alex’s new paper out in Ecology and Evolution
Visual and auditory signals have been well studied in songbirds and often play important roles in premating reproductive isolation, but olfaction has received much less attention. Alex’s new paper shows that olfactory cues also have the potential to act in premating reproductive isolation. He found that preen oils from black-capped and Carolina chickadees have different chemical profiles, and that males and females of both species prefer to associate with odors from individuals of their own species. Check out his paper here!
Alex awarded Thorne Fellowship for Spring 2019
Congratulations, Alex! Alex was awarded a Gordon C. Thorne Fellowship from the Department of Biological Sciences in recognition of his research accomplishments. This fellowship will allow Alex to take some longer sampling trips for the last aim of his thesis investigating olfactory communication as a component of reproductive isolation. It is much appreciated. Way to go, Alex!
Mike now a postdoc with Dr. Sarah Tishkoff at UPenn!
We are all so excited for Mike as he moves on to a postdoc position with Dr. Sarah Tishkoff at the University of Pennsylvania! Mike’s new position started July 2. He will be working with Dr. Tishkoff’s group on human evolutionary genomics. What a fantastic opportunity! We can’t wait to hear more about what he learns and the projects he works on. Congratulations and best wishes, Mike!
Introducing Dr. McQuillan!
We are all very proud of Mike, who successfully defended his PhD dissertation on Monday, April 16! Mike’s dissertation is entitled Ecological causes and evolutionary consequences of hybridization in chickadees. He has done some really exciting research, and we look forward to great things yet to come from Dr. McQuillan. Way to go, Mike!
Paper on hybrid learning and memory out in Evolution
Our new paper on hybrid learning and memory is now available as an Accepted Article in Evolution. Congratulations to Mike as the first author, and to Alex who contributed supporting analyses! The study was covered by a nice article in Audubon as well, which you can access here.
Mike’s new preprint now up on bioRxiv
Check out Mike’s manuscript on learning and memory deficiencies in hybrid chickadees! It’s available here on the Biology preprint server, bioRxiv. Great job, Mike!
Congrats to lab alum Joanna Warren, now a Ph.D. candidate at UNC!
Way to go, Joanna! We’re so proud of you!
Alex awarded CAS Graduate Student Research Grant
Alex received a Lehigh College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Student Research Grant to support his dissertation research on the role of olfactory communication in hybridization. Congratulations, Alex!!!
Blog post on the EPiC Conference
This new blog post on the Genetic Society of America’s Genes to Genomes blog reports on the Spring 2017 EPiC conference, including a mention of Mike’s 3rd place in the best talk competition. http://genestogenomes.org/evolution-in-philadelphia/