People

Abbi Green

Abbi is working on our phylogatR project. She conducted data analyses to explore hidden genetic diversity in salamanders and is currently finishing up a manuscript exploring global phylogenetic diversity in bats. She has also started leading a project in collaboration with Dr. Megan Smith to assess species delimitation methods for metabarcoding data. As a Math major, she is very excited to be applying her math skills to biological problems! Abbi has really taken a liking to working with data and is going to make a rock star data analyst. She has presented some of her work at NASBR 2022 (Austin TX), Evolution 2023 (Albuquerque NM), and the VA Herpetological Society 2024.

Natalie May

Natalie is Biology / Criminal Justice major, with minors in forensics and chemistry. She is condcuting a project that uses eDNA from streams in the southern Appalachians to screen for Hellbenders, the third largest salamander in the world, and one that is endangered in some parts of its range. She presented her work at the VA Herpetological Society Meeting 2024. She wants to go into forensic biology (using DNA data as crime scene evidence). She says that applying science to solving crimes is like a big complicated puzzle and she loves puzzles! She is also a TA for Evolution BIOL 222.

Ryan Gawlik

Ryan started working in the lab under the GEP annotating several genes in several Drosophila species as part of a nation-wide project that aims to understand the genomic basis and evolution of metabolic pathways. Currently, in collaboration with Dr. Brian Waldron, he is working on curating Plethodon genomic data to explore large-scale patterns in genetic diversity, niche evolution, and historical demography. He is great with computers and interested in bioinformatics!

Seth Kane

Seth is supporting our phylogatR efforts with the Carstens lab to build a small genomic dataset for a wide variety of taxa. He is a Biochemistry major with interests in both labwork and computational methods.

Eve manen

Eve is working on our salamander genomics project. She is a biology major minoring in applied design and culture. Her interests lie in genetics and herdity and how that can be used to help people. She has been contributing to our field and lab efforts, as well as designing salamander trading cards for outreach purposes. See her with one of her Eurycea drawings here!

Gabby DiRenno

Gabby is working on our salamander genomics project. She is a biology major minoring in management and wants to go to vet school. Her favorite animals are dinosaurs, giraffes, and dogs! She is also a lacrosse player and is doing an excellent job juggling all the things!

Rodney Pierson

Rodney is working on our salamander genomics project. He is a biology major minoring in history. He is particulalry interested in marine biology but he isn't sure what he wants to do yet when he graduates.

Elisjsha Wade

Elisjsha is working on our salamander genomics project. He is a biology major minoring in business admistration and wants to go to vet school. He spends some of his time working at animal shelters and likes small animals.

Tara A Pelletier, PhD

Google scholar page

Pelletier_CV.pdf

Interested in joining the lab? Please contact me!

Former lab members

You

Some very cool bad-ass project here.

Hannah Farmer
Hannah joined the lab under our phylogatR project. She helped curate a large database of georeferenced DNA sequences for salamanders, that are not easily linked using computational methods. She presented some of this work at Evolution 2024 comparing genetic diversity to IUCN Red List status. In her "free" time, she extracted DNA from soil, water, and tissue samples in the lab, supporting many of our other projects. She also conducted an independent study abroad project screening for chytrid fungus in the Peruvian Amazon! She is currently applying to medical school.

Emily AndersonEmily started in the lab working on the HHMI SEA-GENES project, contributing to nationwide phage research by assessing gene function for every gene in the entire genome of a phage called Tortellini. She ran phenoptypic assays to assess cytotoxity of several genes. Then, she contributed to our data mining efforts to obtain more georeferenced DNA sequences for salamanders! She enjoys research and might explore that route further after continuing her education to recieve her physicians assistant license.

Cassandra Hash
Cassandra was an honors student working on a project she developed on her own. She used open-source genomic databases to gather data on the genomic architecture of invasive vs. non-invasive species of plants. Her goal was to identify characteristics of the genome or gene expression profiles that are common to invasive species. She is interested in plant ecology and conservation genetics, forensic biology, and scientific writing. While still exploring her options after college, she is interested in obtaining a master's degree, or maybe two!

Emma Hendrix

Emma led data collection of both COI and ITS metabarcoding data from dozens of environmental samples we have collected in the lab, to take a community ecology approach to eDNA. She moved on to a PhD program at the University of Virginia's BIMS program!

Hunter Villanueva
Hunter started a project to estimate genetic diversity among populations of caddisfies throughout several tributaries within the New River watershed. He collected 100s of samples in the field and began sequencing COI from these individuals. Hunter recieved an RU summer undergraduate research fellowship to analyze his data! He loves being in the field and would like to eventually work for a park service doing research.

Mari Busser

Mari contributed to our data collection and analysis of eDNA from the MVP project. She has contributed significantly to prepping a manuscript for this project, inlcuding the creation of several plots using R.

Izzy ArmstrongIzzy started working in the lab with our eDNA team and has helped with lots of lab work. For her honors thesis she annotated genes from several Drosophila species as part of a larger project that aims to understand the genomic basis and evolution of metabolic pathways. and presented this work at Evolution 2022 (Cleveland OH).

Stephanie Crouch

Stephanie is a rock star data analyst. She worked on our phylogatR project and led the data analysis for our empirical example that explored genetic diversity and range size in over 80,000 species. She has contributed significantly to our manuscript and presented her work locally. She would like to pursue something related to molecular forensics.

Maya BanksMaya joined the lab after taking Bioinformatics and falling in love with computational methods. She worked on gene annotations in D. biarmpies, and has one publication already in the works. Maya was part of the Elevate program that aims to increase participation of BIPOC students in research. She is interested in genetic counseling and also really likes talking about dinosaurs, which makes her extra cool.

Camryn Williford

Camryn joined the lab as a Research Rookie. She spent time testing out different sets of primers and the influence of field and lab techniques on detecting DNA from environmental samples. She presented her work several times, both locally and nationally, and significantly contributed to methods development in the lab.

Drew ReavisAfter participating in eDNA data collection in our Genetics course, Drew continued with the bioinformatics and data analysis on those data collected from Wildwood Park. He contributed to a manuscript now in review that compares these data to field sampling and water chemistry.

Lexi Lyons

Lexi was part of our eDNA team! She is interested in wildlife conservation and minoring in business administration. She'll be looking for government jobs after she graduates. She is a rock star in the field and great at making plots!

Sir NottinghamSir joined the lab after taking Computational Biology and falling in love with data analysis. He worked on a project that explored the environmental niche of western Plethodon salamanders and how they might respond to climate change, which has been published in Ecology and Evolution. He is broadly interested in science, likes building things, and spends time learning about renewable energy.

Will Krause

Will was a Computer Science major here at Radford University. He is interested in using his computer skills to answer biological questions. Will helped to process our metabarcoding data. He is interested in pursuing a graduate degree in bioinformatics.GithubLinkedin

Tylis Johnson

Tylis was part of our eDNA team! She developed mock DNA communities to establish baseline expectations of biomass estimates for our metabarcoding project. She's not sure what she would like to do when she graduates, so I am pretty sure we'll convert her into becoming an evolutionary biologist.

Derrick Sutton

Derrick is the one waving.

Damaris Forkey

Damaris is the one pipeting.

Derrick and Damaris both worked on the HHMI SEA-GENES project. We are contributing to nationwide phage research by assessing gene function for every gene in the entire genome of a phage called Tortellini. They started this work in BIOL450 Moelcular Biology and continued this research independently in the lab. They cloned several genes and ran several different phenoptypic assays to assess cytotoxity and phage defense.

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