Marie Arentsen, Undergraduate researcher
Marie worked on a project looking at variation in herbivory and plant size in natural populations of Arabidopsis. She came to us from Denmark. She has returned home and is studying psychology at the University of Aarhus.
Regina Baucom, Ph.D. Graduate student
Gina completed her Ph.D. in the Spring, 2006 and is now a postdoc in Jeff Bennetzen's lab at UGA. She studied the evolutionary genetics of a novel trait, tolerance to herbicide, in morning glories. While a graduate student, she was supported by NSF/DOE/USDA and NIH training grants. She also wrote a successful dissertation improvement grant to NSF, which supported her research.
Natalie Bowman, Undergraduate researcher
Natalie worked on a project looking at pollen differences between two species of Leavenworthia. She is currently a UGA undergraduate who is planning on studying enology in graduate school.
Molly Brown, Undergraduate researcher
Molly worked on the evolutionary genetics of tolerance to herbicide in morning glories as well as on a project looking at within-population variation in Arabidopsis. She was supported by an REU supplement to Rodney's NSF grant. Molly graduated with a B.S. in Biology in December, 2004. She is studying to be an R.N. at the Medical College of Georgia.
Shannon Brown, Undergraduate researcher
Shannon worked on a project looking at pollen variation in two species of Leavenworthia. She is currently an undergraduate majoring in Biochemistry at the University of Georgia.
Madeline Cozad, Undergraduate researcher
Madeline worked on tolerance to glyphosate in morning glories. She is currently an undergraduate majoring in Genetics at the University of Georgia.
Jenny Fenton, Undergraduate researcher
Jenny worked on a project investigating the effects of ultraviolet-B radiation on natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana. She was supported by an REU supplement to Rodney's NSF grant. She is currently an undergraduate at the University of Georgia.
Stephanie Held, Research technician
As a technician, Stephanie worked on a project which considered the effects of the environment on the determination of quantitative trait loci (QTL) for seed traits in the annual plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. She is presently a graduate student in Debbie Roach's lab at the Department of Biology at the University of Virginia, where she was awarded a President's Fellowship.
Stacy Jørgensen, Ph.D., Postdoctoral researcher
Stacy was a Ph.D. student working with Dr. Kathy Parker in the Department of Geography at the University of Georgia. Her dissertation was on the biogeographic and genetic diversification of a group of native Hawaiian plants (Lipochaeta section Aphanopappus). She did all of her genetic studies in our lab. She received her Ph.D. in December, 2002 and returned in 2003 and 2004 to do a postdoc on the geographic structure of genetic variation in Arabidopsis. She is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
Vanessa Koelling, Ph.D., Graduate student
Vanessa studied how species form. In particular, her research focused on understanding the evolutionary and ecological processes responsible for reproductive barriers between species. She examined the ecological and genetic basis of reproductive isolation between 2 species in the genus, Leavenworthia. Her graduate work was funded by an NIH Fellowship (GM67574-01). She is currently a postdoc in John Kelly's lab at the University of Kansas.
Kelly Kopf, Undergraduate researcher
Kelly worked on her Honors thesis in the lab. Her research centered on understanding the interactions of gene flow and selection on adaptively important traits in natural populations of the rock cress, Arabidopsis lyrata. She was supported by an REU supplement to Rodney's NSF grant. She graduated in December, 2004 and is now an attorney in North Carolina, having graduated from the UNC School of Law. She was the recipient of the 2005 "Cynthia Kenyon Outstanding Undergraduate Award" of the Department of Genetics.
Lynn Mitchell, Undergraduate researcher
Lynn worked on a project looking at variation in herbivory and plant size in natural populations of Arabidopsis. She was supported by an REU supplement to Rodney's NSF grant. She graduated from UGA in December, 2005.
Amanda Mulligan, Undergraduate researcher
Amanda studied the evolutionary genetics of novel herbicide tolerance in natural populations of the common morning glory, Ipomoea purpurea. Amanda graduated with a B.S. in Genetics in December, 2003.
Mickey Nzira, Undergraduate researcher
Mickey worked on a project investigating the effects of ultraviolet-B radiation on natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana. He was supported by an REU supplement to Rodney's NSF grant. He is currently an undergraduate at the University of Georgia.
Cristi Radford, Undergraduate researcher
Cristi worked on a field project investigating the environmental and genetic control of anthocyanin production in Arabidopsis thaliana. Christi graduated with a B.S. in Genetics in 2001. After working as a senior lab technician in the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, she entered the Genetic Counseling Program at the University of South Carolina where she earned her Master of Science degree. She is now a genetic counselor at the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center in Newark, Delaware.
Christina Richards, Ph.D., Graduate student
Christina graduated with her Ph.D. in May, 2004. Her research focused on understanding how patterns of selection vary in the salt marsh and how plant responses to this variation in selection lead to patterns of genetic and phenotypic variation in natural populations. She worked with the dominant high marsh perennial, Borrichia frutescens (Asteraceae: Sea Oxeye Daisy) on Sapelo Island, Georgia (which contains some of the last unaltered salt marshes along the Atlantic coast). She is currently doing a postdoc at NYU.
Jeremy Sexton, Undergraduate researcher
Jeremy is working on a project looking at pollen variation in two species of Leavenworthia. He is currently an undergraduate majoring in Biology at the University of Georgia.
Stephen Scott, Undergraduate researcher
Stephen studied the interactions between soil bacteria and plants -- a generally underappreciated area of evolutionary genetic research. He investigated the genetic basis of the interactions of a genus of antibiotic-producing soil bacteria, Streptomyces, and natural populations of the annual plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. Stephen graduated with a B.S. in Biology in May, 2003 and is in graduate school now at the State University of New York Maritime College.
Jessica Sterling, Research technician
Jessica came to us from Ohio University where she graduated in 2003. She ran the lab for two years and is currently a graduate student in the Odum School of Ecology at UGA.
Stephanie Tucker, Undergraduate researcher
Stephanie studied the evolutionary genetics of novel herbicide tolerance in natural populations of the common morning glory, Ipomoea purpurea. She graduated from the University of Georgia.
Danny Vaughn, Undergraduate researcher
Danny worked on a field project investigating the environmental and genetic control of plant size in Arabidopsis thaliana. Danny graduated with a B.S. in Biology in December, 2001. He graduated from the Mercer University School of Medicine in Macon, Georgia.
Ashleigh Waits, Undergraduate researcher
Ashleigh worked on finding the genetic basis for seed size variation and germination traits in Arabidopsis thaliana. Ashleigh graduated with a B.S. in Genetics in December, 2001. She is presently employed by a large, contract pharmaceutical company, Quintiles Transnational, in Atlanta.
Julie Williams, Undergraduate researcher
Julie studied the evolutionary genetics of novel herbicide tolerance in natural populations of the common morning glory, Ipomoea purpurea. She graduated with a B. S. in Genetics in May, 2004. She is currently a prenatal genetic counselor at the Medical College of Georgia and received her M.S. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007.
Jeff Wolf, Undergraduate researcher
Jeff worked with Vanessa on variyuos aspects of her work on speciation in Leavenworthia. Jeff helped to complete a reciprocal transplant experiment in northwest Alabama and also assisted with a population genetic analysis using allozymes. He is currently an undergraduate majoring in Plant Biology at the University of Georgia.