President
The EEBISO president organizes and leads EEBISO meetings, attends executive committee meetings and reports back to EEBISO, does various other tasks (like signing forms, applying for funds), is the point of contact for EEB Application Buddies, and often works closely with the EEB program coordinator and EEB chair.
Treasurer
The treasurer is responsible for organizing payments for EEBISO events as well as procuring funds for events. Other responsibilities include fundraising, which includes t-shirt sales and the silent auction at our annual crawfish boil.
Events Chair
The events chair is the lead on organizing outreach and social events for EEB, including our annual crawfish boil, happy hours, potlucks or picnics, community building activities like game nights, and various other events. Additional duties including forming a committee and working closely with the outreach chair and program coordinator for Darwin Day.
Communications Chair
The communications chair is the the point person for communicating relevant information to EEB students. Responsibilities include taking notes at EEBISO meetings, communicating information from EEBISO to the rest of EEB, including event advertisements and important news, and communicating updates for the EEB website. This position works with the communications committee to provide EEB social media outlets with information to advertise and boost EEB’s social media reach.
Seminar Representative
The seminar representative sits on the EEB seminar committee, works with the seminar chair/committee and the program coordinator to communicate student perspectives, reports seminar news to the EEBISO leadership, and helps with the organization of seminars such as grad student lunches, attendance, invitations, etc.
EEBISO 2023-24 Elected Officers
President
I am a Ph.D. student in the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in the Lawing lab. I study community ecology and functional trait composition across mammals. I am interested in the ecological and evolutionary processes that lead to the assembly of functional trait communities. I am also developing a periodic table of niches for mammals. I am working on our NSF grant, “Vertebrate Functional Traits as
Indicators of Ecosystem Function in Deep and Shallow Time.”
Treasurer
I am a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Spalink lab in ECCB. My research focuses on understanding the causes of divergence and gene flow in Spiranthes, a genus of North American orchids. Broadly, I’m interested in understanding why things diverge, why gene flow happens, and how we can improve analytical and detection methods. To pursue these goals, I’ve developed a long term, community science driven ecological observation study, collated a massive dataset to study global patterns of hybridization in plants, developed a new method for quantifying generalism, and conducted simulation studies to better understand trait evolution along phylogenetic networks. I’m currently working on understanding niche evolution in Spiranthes, and I’ve been hard at work in the lab gathering DNA for over 200 Spiranthes specimens, which will be used to construct spatial explicit phylogenetic networks. I also love side projects, cats, and cooking!
Events Chair
I am a third-year Ph.D. student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program in the Fitzgerald lab. I earned my B.S. from Johns Hopkins University where I did research in marine ecology, sedimentary geology, primate comparative morphology, and stable isotope geochemistry. My current projects focus on the impacts of introduced species on native lizard populations and how to improve coexistence using a landscape framework. I am
assessing how threat types effect native lizard conservation risk on a global scale and specifically focusing on how to repatriate the endemic St. Croix Ground Lizard (Pholidoscelis polops) in a Caribbean island where introduced mammalian predators (Herpestes auropunctata) still exist. I am passionate about applied conservation and outreach and am involved with the Applied Biodiversity Science Program and the Darwin Day Committee in addition to my responsibilities with EEBISO.
Communications Chair
I am a third-year Ph.D. student in the Light lab in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology. I received my undergraduate and master’s degrees at Universidad Nacional Autónoma deMéxico (UNAM) where I focused my research on taxonomy and systematics of bat flies. I am interested in the systematics and evolution of bat flies, particularly in understanding the diversification process of bat flies in the Neotropics as well as the evolutive relationship with their host. Currently, my Ph.D. research is focuses on understanding the relationship between bat fly species in the family Streblidae, specifically, to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships of these bat flies using phylogenomic approaches as well as studying the coevolutive relationship between these parasites and their host.
Seminar Representative
I am a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Lawing’s Paleoecology, Evolution, and Climate Lab in the Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology. My research focuses on the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms contributing to invasion success in the globally invasive Italian wall lizard. Specifically, I focus on the ways in which these mechanisms differ between native and invasive populations. I am working with collaborators at Italian museums and universities as well as national, state, and local parks in the United States to develop a reporting and conservation protocol for invasive Italian wall lizards. Currently, I am analyzing environmental data to identify environmental requirements for invasion success in the Italian wall lizard.