Dr. Courtney Fitzpatrick joined the TAMU Biology Department and EEB program this Fall 2021. Dr. Fitzpatrick received her B.A. in visual art from University of North Carolina Chapel Hill before working in the nonprofit sector at The Hetrick-Martin Institute. Dr. Fitzpatrick then completed her PhD in Biology at Duke University followed by two postdoctoral fellowships. Visit Dr. Fitzpatrick’s lab website to learn more.
Spotlight – 12 New 1st Year PhD Students
We are excited to welcome a diverse and highly accomplished incoming cohort of twelve first-year PhD students this semester!
Welcome!
Keith Andringa, Audelia Mechti, Vivian Peralta Santana, Nicole Stevens, Brooke Torjman, Chris Brennan, Matthew Marano, Ali Lira Olguin, Angela Haggard, Benton Fry, Andie Miller, Maria Alejandra Hurtado
Find out more about them in the September 2021 NewsfEEB.
Spotlight – Natalie Aguirre
Natalie Aguirre (Helms lab) graduated with a B.S. in biology from Pepperdine University. During this time, she completed an honor’s thesis conducting research on the interaction of drought stress and pathogen infection in a chaparral shrub species, Malosma laurina. She then spent a year as a Fulbright scholar at the Universidad Politecnica in Madrid, Spain, where she studied effect of water stress on Dutch Elm Disease. Most recently, Natalie worked for the Everglades Foundation in Miami, Florida, creating educational programs and materials about the Florida everglades.
Spotlight – Alyson Brokaw
Alyson Brokaw is a Ph.D. candidate in the Smotherman Lab with an imminent dissertation defense scheduled for December 9th. Alyson joined the Smotherman Lab at the dawn of the EEB program following completion of her M.S. in the Szewczak lab at Humboldt State University where she began her academic journey studying bat sensory ecology, olfaction, neurophysiology, and bat behavior. Read more in the December NewsfEEB.
Spotlight – Owen Dorsey
EEB student Owen Dorsey graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2014 with a BS in Biology. After graduation, he took a couple of years off, working as a laboratory technologist at the American Red Cross, before starting his MS work at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. For his research, he investigated inbreeding avoidance and mate choice behavior in the invasive western mosquitofish (a close relative of swordtails!) using a combination of behavioral assays and genetic analyses.
Owen joined the Rosenthal lab in 2019 and is broadly interested in studying the fitness consequences of inbreeding and the evolution of pre- and post- copulatory mechanisms to avoid inbreeding. Owen plans to investigate the “cost-benefit” to inbreeding in swordtails.
