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January 4, 2024 - Funk Lab alumna Dr. Mónica Páez-Vacas starts new job as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Argentina!
Congratulations to Dr. Mónica Páez-Vacas for landing a new job as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Drs. Mariana Morando and Melisa Olave at the Instituto Patagónico para el Estudio de Los Ecosistemas Continentales, Centro Nacional Patagónico, in Puerto Madryn, Argentina! She will be investigating the role of hybridization in the phenotypic diversification of South American lizards of the Liolaemus fitzingerii group.
September 14, 2023 - Introducing DR. Cheek!
Congratulations to the newly minted DR. Rebecca Cheek for successfully defending her dissertation!! Rebecca gave a fantastic defense talk. She also has already landed a permanent job with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's Molecular Genetics Lab as a research scientist, which she starts in January 2024!
July 15, 2023 - Chris and Victoria meet up with Funk Lab alumnus Dr. Brian Gill in Washington, DC!
Chris and Victoria Funk had the opportunity to visit with Funk Lab alumnus, Dr. Brian Gill, at his new home in Washington, DC, where he just started a new position as a Biologist at the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. It was great catching up!
May 6, 2023 - Congratulations to Funk Lab alumnus Dr. Brian Gill for landing job with the US EPA!
Lab alumnus Dr. Brian Gill has accepted a position as a Biologist at the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention in Washington DC. He joins the Environmental Fate and Effects Division of the Office of Pesticide Programs. Congratulations, Dr. Gill!
May 3, 2023 - Rebecca awarded GDPE Excellence in Mentoring and Teaching Award!
Congratulations to Rebecca Cheek who was selected for a Graduate Degree Program in Ecology (GDPE) Excellence in Mentoring and Teaching Award in recognition of her outstanding undergraduate teaching and mentoring! Funklings are dominating the teaching and mentoring awards this year! Nice!
April 25, 2023 - Amanda Cicchino selected for Biology Department Graduate Student Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring Award!
Congratulations to Dr. Amanda Cicchino who has been selected for the Biology Department Graduate Student Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring Award in recognition of her contributions to undergraduate teaching and mentoring! Extremely well-deserved Doctor Cicchino!
April 19, 2023 - Bennett heads back to SoCal!!
Dr. Bennett Hardy has just accepted a 2 year postdoctoral fellowship at Chapman University with Dr. Patricia Lopes!!! This is an incredible opportunity for Bennett to expand his skill set in understanding the functional mechanisms of how hosts respond to pathogens.
April 18, 2023 - Congratulations to new Funk-Anderson labs Postdoc Morgan Sparks for being selected as a Sustainability Leadership Fellow!
Congratulations to Dr. Morgan Sparks for being selected as a CSU SoGES Sustainability Leadership Fellow, which provides training in science communication and career development. Morgan will start his postdoc at CSU starting in June 2023.
April 6, 2023 - Amanda lands prestigious Centre for Ecosystem Management Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Guelph!
Congratulations to Dr. Amanda Cicchino for landing the prestigious Centre for Ecosystem Management Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Guelph under the mentorship of Dr. Joey Bernhardt. This postdoc will provide Amanda with a ton of independence to take her research program in whatever direction she chooses. She starts September 2023.
March 27, 2023 - Shanelle Wikramanayake accepts offer of admission as PhD student in Funk Lab!
We are delighted to welcome Shanelle Wikramanayake to CSU, GDPE, and Biology! Shanelle will start her PhD in the Funk Lab during the fall 2023 semester, where her dissertation research will focus on the conservation genomics of the herps of her native Sri Lanka. Shanelle also was awarded CSU's first and only Inclusive Excellence Fellowship before she even showed up! Amazing!
March 26, 2023 - Rebecca awarded a Graduate Degree Program in Ecology Research Grant!
Congratulations to Funk Lab PhD candidate Rebecca Cheek for being awarded a GDPE Research Grant, which she will use to support her research on microgeographic adaptation in Island Scrub-jays. These funds will also support Funk Lab undergraduate student Maria Lee.
March 22, 2023 - Meet DOCTOR Cicchino!
A huge congratulations to the newly-minted DOCTOR Cicchino for successfully defending her PhD on "Linking organismal physiology to the landscape to predict vulnerability to climate change"! She knocked her defense out of the ballpark.
February 24, 2023 - Bennett received 1st Place Oral Presentation at the Front Range Student Ecology Symposium!
Congratulations to Bennett for receiving 1st Place Oral Presentation at the CSU Front Range Student Ecology Symposium for his talk entitled, "Interpopulation variation in host response to disease"!
January 31, 2023 - Chris elected a 2022 AAAS Fellow
Congratulations to Chris for being elected a 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow, as described in this CSU Source article.
January 17, 2023 - Funk Lab alumnus Daryl Trumbo starts new job as a Visiting Assistant Professor at CSU Pueblo
Congratulations to Daryl Trumbo for starting a new position as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at CSU Pueblo.
November 4, 2022 - Chris selected as a Government Relations Faculty Ambassador
Chris is one of seven CSU faculty members selected as a Government Relations Faculty Ambassador as part of a new initiative by the Office of the Vice President for Research. The program is designed to assist faculty members with strong research focuses to engage with federal, state, and local policy on issues affecting business, environment, foreign policy, families, and public health. Learn more about this program in this CSU Source article.
October 28, 2022 - Bennett Hardy publishes first chapter of dissertation in the Journal of Applied Ecology
Congratulations to Bennett Hardy--Funk Lab PhD Candidate--for publishing the first chapter of his dissertation on "Compensatory recruitment unlikely in high-elevation amphibian populations challenged with disease" in the Journal of Applied Ecology! Bennett's paper demonstrates the devastating effects of the amphibian chytrid fungus on survival in Southern Rocky Mountain boreal toads, and suggests that host responses to disease are likely elevationally context-dependent.
August 3, 2022 - Rebecca Cheek publishes paper on behavioral plasticity in nest height and construction in orange-crowned warblers
Congratulations to Rebecca Cheek--Funk Lab PhD Candidate--for publishing an exciting new paper that demonstrates behavioral plasticity in nest height and constructions in orange-crowned warblers on Santa Catalina Island in Animal Behavior! Although song birds typically exhibit a high degree of conservatism in nest location and construction, the behaviorial plasticity seen here in orange-crowned warblers may allow them to use a range of nest sites and materials due to lack of avian predation on this island.
July 31, 2022 - Brenna Forester's paper on genomics-informed delineation of conservation units in Columbia spotted frogs accepted in Molecular Ecology
Congratulations to former Funk Lab postdoc, Brenna Forester, for the acceptance of her paper entitled "Genomics-informed delineation of conservation units in a desert amphibian" in Molecular Ecology! Genomics has tremendous potential to improve delineation of conservation units, yet few examples exist. Brenna's paper pushes the bar in this important application of genomics to conservation by integrating genomic with demographic data, and by the novel application of a variety of analyses.
Jacey Murphy catches her first coastal tailed frog tadpole!
July 19, 2022 - Amanda Cicchino and Jacey Murphy in the field!
Funk Lab PhD Candidate--Amanda Cicchino--and her star field assistant--Jacey Murphy--are in the field in the Oregon Cascades catching coastal tailed frog (Ascaphus truei) tadpoles and testing their upper thermal limits (UTL) as part of an NSF funded Rapid Response Research grant. The goal of the project is to test whether observed increases in their UTL were caused in part by rapid genetically-based evolution, and what this means for their long-term persistence in a rapidly changing climate.
July 1, 2022 - Staci Amburgey lands job as a Quantitative Ecologist with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife!
Congratulations to former Funk Lab member--Staci Amburgey--for starting a new job as a Quantitative Ecologist with the Wildlife Program within the Science Division at the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, allowing her to work with an amazing diversity of Washington fauna, ecosystems, and stakeholders. Staci (now DR. Amburgey) started in the Funk Lab as an undergraduate research assistant back in 2008, and then completed a MS degree in the lab in 2013 before she headed off to Penn State to pursue her PhD. Making us proud, Staci, making us proud!
March 14, 2022 - Rebecca Cheek publishes first chapter of dissertation in Molecular Ecology
Congratulations to Rebecca Cheek--Funk Lab PhD Candidate--for publishing the first chapter of her dissertation on "Habitat-linked genetic variation supports microgeographic adaptive divergence in an island-endemic bird species" in Molecular Ecology! Rebecca's paper provides genomic evidence for local adaptation over extremely small spatial scales in island scrub-jays on Santa Cruz Island.
March 2, 2022 - The Funk Lab is hiring a Lab and Collections Manager
The Funk Lab at Colorado State University is seeking a highly organized, enthusiastic, and motivated scientist to fill a Conservation Genomics Lab and Collections Manager position. The successful candidate will work closely with our multi-disciplinary team of post-docs, graduate students, other research staff, and faculty within the Biology Department at Colorado State. Interested applicants should send applications to Chris Funk (Chris.Funk@colostate.edu) by March 31, 2022. See job ad HERE.
March 1, 2022 - NSF recommends funding for collaborative RAPID grant on testing the mechanisms and consequences of an adaptive response to a catastrophic fire and heat wave in stream frogs
Congratulations to Team Ascaphus for receiving an NSF RAPID (Grants for Rapid Response Research) grant to investigate the causes of an increase in thermal tolerance following a catastrophic fire and heat wave in the coastal tailed frog (Ascaphus truei)! This is a collaborative project between Michigan State University (PI: Alisha Shah) and Colorado State University (CoPI: Chris Funk and Postdoc: Amanda Cicchino), as well as several collaborators (University of Montana: Erin Landguth; USGS: Jason Dunham; CSU: Brenna Forester and Cameron Ghalambor).
January 7, 2022 - Amanda Cicchino wins the Raymond B. Huey Best Student Oral Presentation Award at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology conference in Phoenix, AZ!
A huge congrats to Amanda Cicchino for winning the Raymond D. Huey Best Student Oral Presentation Award at SICB for her talk about how acute effects of temperature can confound estimates of acclimation capacity of CTmax with important implications for vulnerability assessments. Way to represent, Amanda!
November 11, 2021 - Rebecca Cheek wins 1st place in the Top Scholar for University Interdisciplinary Programs category at the 2021 CSU Graduate Student Showcase!
A hearty congratulations to Rebecca Cheek for winning 1st place in the Top Scholar for University Interdisciplinary Programs category at the 2021 CSU Graduate Student Showcase for her presentation on her research on microgeographic adaptation in Island Scrub-jays. Excellent work, Rebecca!
November 4, 2021 - Brenna Forester's manuscript on linking evolutionary potential to extinction risk accepted by Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment!
Brenna Forester's manuscript entitled "Linking evolutionary potential to extinction risk: applications and future directions" sailed through review in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. An excellent job leading a paper on a complex and important topic.
Photo credit: W. Chris Funk