Graduate Student Projects
Past M.S. Graduate Students
Morgan Dalis worked on the usage of mitochondrial markers and genomes on the phylogeography of phoronid species, in particular, Phoronis pallida. Her work along with the contributions of other student authors was recently presented at the 2015 meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (West Palm Beach, Florida). She is currently working on her Ph.D. at Auburn University.
Hui Yang worked on the phylogenetic relationships among phoronid species using ribosomal DNA sequences and morphological characters. Hui specifically added new data on Phoronopsis albomaculata from sites in the indo-west Pacific. Hui is currently working on his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell.
Ayako Katagi conducted research on the brain development of the convict cichlid, Amatitlania nigrofasciata, and the onset of territorial-like behaviors. She published some of this work in the Journal of the district environment, health, and welfare research (2015). Ayako recently completed her Ph.D. at Kagawa University in Japan where she worked on the effects of natural products from Jatropha seeds on the proliferation of breast cancer cell lines (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844015303686).
Carlee Resh isolated and characterized the expression patterns of several transcription factors involved in the development of the nervous system within the embryos and larvae of the articulate brachiopod, Terebratalia transversa. Her thesis work has focused on the role of one these factors, FoxG, during the development of the ciliated bands and subsets of neuronal cell types within the apical lobe of the larva. In collaboration with the Martindale Lab, her work was published in EvoDevo (EvoDevo Paper). After teaching as an adjunct professor at Farmingdale State College and LIU-Post for several years, she is now working her Ph.D. at Central Michigan University.
