Congratulations to Ella Mathews, Hannah Eckert and Jose Ornelas for presenting their research and completing their project for a thesis of distinction in their major!
Ella Mathews
Hannah Eckert
Jose Ornelas
We spent the spring hatching diapause crickets from 6 allopatric populations and F1 hybrids for our QTL mapping project. We could haven’t have done this without help from Alyson and an amazing team of undergraduates (thank you Ella, Hannah, Jayne, Ariella, Aiden, Whitney, Alexandra, Halle and Isabella!). Isaac has collected a ton of data on male calling song and completed an experiment to test hybrid immune function. I completed test crosses of hybrid male’s ability to fertilize females of each species. Soon we can have a break from the crickets before our fall field season.
Ella Mathews and Alyssa Aragon present their thesis research projects at the DU Undergraduate Research Showcase.
Lauren presents her research on copulation duration in leaf beetles at the spring Undergraduate Research Symposium.
Elise Gellman will be staying with the Larson Lab as a research technician over the next year through support from the NSF Research Experience for Post-Baccalaureate Students (REPs) program. Welcome back Elise!
Elise Gellman and Christina Maguire were each awarded Undergraduate Summer Research Grants from the Undergraduate Research Center to pursue their independent research projects on field crickets. Elise and Christina have been busy rearing crickets and learning new techniques in the lab.
The lab got together for a brunch in the park to celebrate Uma’s graduation this week. Uma will be moving on to a PhD program in the awesome Kozak Lab. We are also saying goodbye to Clara who started a new job in environmental consulting here in Denver and Amy who is off to do summer field work in Pennsylvania.
Cottontail rabbit original by Kelsie Hunnicutt
Amy, Uma, Kelsie, Clara, Erica and Summer
Uma Knaven was awarded a Grant in Aid of Research from Sigma Xi to support her undergraduate Honor’s thesis on cottontail mitochondrial DNA. This project is a collaboration with Kelsie Hunnicutt, who is leading the lab efforts to quantify population structure and hybridization among local cottontails. Congratulations Uma!
Uma Knaven was just awarded a Partners in Scholarship (PinS) Award to support her research project with Kelsie Hunnicutt to sequence mitochondrial DNA in Denver rabbits.
Abigail Wallin and Uma Knaven both received Summer Research Awards. Congratulations and welcome!
The DU Nature Challenge was a success! Despite cold weather, we still found a few Orthopterans.
The Murphy, Tinghitella and Larson Labs have been sampling clover across Denver as part of the Global Urban Evolution Project. We had great help from Veronica Huizar and Gui Zheng, who are participating in the University of Denver STEM Student Research Initiative. Check out Veronica and Gui's blogs about their summer research experience!
Veronica Huizar