In our master's or doctoral program, you can conduct the research you love.

EECB doctoral student working with BLM to restore and manage our wildlands

Congratulations to Alison Agneray who was recently promoted to Great Basin Ecoregional Coordinator within the Bureau of Land Management (BLM)). In this role, Alison makes important decisions about restoration and land management across western states. From her time spent researching restoration ecology, population ecology, and native and invasive Great Basin plants at the University with Beth Leger, we can confidently say that our wildlands will be in good hands. We're proud of you, Alison!

EECB doctoral student joins leadership of international ecological organization, wins award

We are proud to announce that Leah Prescott has been elected treasurer of the International Network for Seed Based Restoration. Leah also recently received the Nevada Native Plant Society's Research Award. Keep up the great work, Leah!

The Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) student committee has a new website

Check it out! You’ll find resources for students, faculty, and anyone interested in making STEM more inclusive. You can follow along with their monthly and seasonal resource updates, or follow their news page as they make progress toward implementing a list of concrete actions to make our program more equitable (started in 2020).

EECB Faculty Beth Leger receives Foundation Professor Award!

We want to take a moment to feature Dr. Beth Leger and celebrate her 2021 Foundation Professor Award! This prestigious, campus-wide award recognizes Dr. Leger's outstanding research and substantial contributions to the EECB graduate program. In the words of current program administrator Dr. Lee Dyer, "her research goes well beyond her basic research in ecology or botany, and she is considered a leader in invasion ecology, restoration ecology, and conservation of native plants."  Dr. Leger has also served as associate director and acting director for EECB, working to improve the comprehensive exam process and guide the program through a time of rapid growth. She was one of the co-founders of the University's Natural History Museum and has played a large role in encouraging faculty and students to engage in political outreach. Her dedication to students and the program is incredible and we are lucky to have her as part of the EECB faculty. 

Congratulations to NRES grad student Kelly Loria, 2021 recipient of the NSF GRFP!

The GRFP is a competitive national award that provides three years of support to outstanding STEM graduate students. Kelly is advised by Dr. Joanna Blaszczak and is broadly interested in how headwater catchments will be impacted by climate change in areas that are experiencing rapid signals of winter warming like the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Kelly is currently investigating patterns of mountain stream metabolism and nutrient uptake by algal communities and the sensitivity of these trends to expected winter disturbances in Lake Tahoe Basin. Congrats again Kelly!

Congrats to Danielle Salcido, 2021 recipient of the College of Science's Outstanding Graduate Student Award!

Danielle is currently examining patterns of plant-caterpillar-parasitoids interactions across tropical and temperate sites. She has published a breadth of papers on how plant-insect networks change across time and space and in response to global change, including a 2021 paper in PNAS.  Danielle’s advisor, Lee Dyer, says that “as a graduate student, she has been a passionate and driven leader of community science teams, and one of her dissertation manuscripts focuses on the effectiveness of programs for outreach and diversity and inclusion of communities of K-12, corporate, and public volunteers. She has helped bring a hands-on view of science and the world of nature to hundreds of volunteers.”

EECB Student Stephanie Coronado receives Fulbright Scholarship!

Steph has proposed to study how gradients of water and nutrient availability affect the strength of a defensive tree-ant mutualism and the associated diversity of tree-eating caterpillar communities. As part of the Fulbright, Steph will collaborate with Dr. Andrea Vincent of the Universidad de Costa Rica, an ecosystem ecologist, to analyze the integrative effects of water and soil nutrients on tree carbon budgets and defensive investment strategies.

Anjana Parandhaman receives 2021 GSA Outstanding Graduate Student Scholarship.

Anjana (she/her) focuses her research on current and future habitat suitability and connectivity for the Mojave Desert Tortoise, a species considered "threatened" under the US Endangered Species Act. Anjana's work involves extensive surveys at the edges of the species' range in an effort to understand how the tortoise may be impacted under future climate change and land-use change scenarios. In addition to her outstanding research, Anjana was one of the students who spearheaded the formation of a student Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion committee in 2020, helped the faculty compose EECB's first-ever diversity statement, and co-taught the first EECB "Diversity in STEM" course.

Congratulations 2021 recipients of GSA's Outstanding International Graduate Student Scholarship!

Chanchanok (Saw) Sudta studies insect ecology and species interaction, using lepidopteran larvae (caterpillars) to explore how diet specialization relates to abundance, how interaction diversity of plant arthropod communities varies across anthropogenic and environmental gradients, and how common caterpillars found on one host plant species are microhabitat specialists.

Masoud Rostami is a data scientist interested in the intersection of environmental science, energy, water quality, climate change, and ecology. Masoud's current project aims to use machine learning to understand the role of environmental variables on the distribution of meiofauna in the Gulf of Mexico during Deepwater Horizon Impact.

Congrats to the EECB recipients of the 2021 GSA Research, Travel, and Materials Grant!

Jennifer Heppner (top) will focus her research on phenotypic differences in birds along an urban gradient and the adaptive mechanisms of urban birds. Devon Picklum (bottom left) focuses her work on rubber rabbit brush and associated gall-forming insect communities near Pyramid Lake.  Haley Moniz (bottom center) will be using this grant to process stable isotope samples collected this season with the intent to understand garter snake diet, particularly the importance of toxic newts to snake populations with high and low toxin resistance. Kelly Robinson (bottom right) will be using these funds to explore TTX sequestration in garter snakes.

Doctoral candidate Angela Pitera wins Fall 2020 Outstanding Graduate Award!

Congratulations to Angela Pitera, PhD candidate and one of the UNR Graduate Student Association Fall 2020 Outstanding Graduates. Angela always goes above and beyond as the TA for mammalogy, and teaching during a pandemic was no exception." Angela managed all the challenges of masking, social distancing within lab, and reduced time for in-lab activities, and still provided an excellent learning experience for her student." - Jack Hayes, Professor and Dept. of Biology Chair

Congratulations to the EECB student recipients of the 2020 Graduate Student Association Outstanding Graduate Student Scholarships!

Ericka Kay (top left) studies how interactions among organisms are mediated by biological compounds, specifically using industrial hemp.

Anna Tatarko (top right) studies the impacts of pesticides on different aspects of insect physiology, including the gut health of an understudied native bee.

Christopher Halsch (bottom right) is currently interested in the impacts of climate change on insect populations in montane landscapes. Well that and chasing butterflies.

Haley Moniz (bottom left) is transitioning from studying the evolutionary costs of adaptive toxin resistance in garter snakes to investigating the origin of selective pressures in the garter snake and newt coevolution. Essentially, getting at the ever-present question: how often do snakes actually eat toxic newts?

Congratulations to the EECB students who received the 2020 Graduate Student Association Research, Travel and Materials Grant!

Rosemary Frederick (top left), who studies competitive abilities of common native restoration grasses, will use her funds to pay for greenhouse space to test adaptive traits in response to maternal growing environment.

Anson Call (top right) will use his grant to study mutualisms and nitrogen flows in alfalfa fields.

Benjamin Sonnenberg (bottom right) will put his funds towards research projects, including using RFID technology to record parental nesting behavior in Mountain Chickadees.

Casey Adkins (bottom left) will use her funds to investigate the allelic diversity of the histocompatibility complex (MHC) between two woodrat species (Neotoma fuscipes and N. macrotis) and their hybrid offspring.

Doctoral student Danielle Salcido receives Outstanding Student Paper award!

Congratulations to EECB doctoral student Danielle Salcido for receiving the Outstanding Student Paper award from the Organization for Tropical Studies. 

Read more about her research (please note: links to an external site that may not be fully accessible.)

Congratulations to the NSF GRFP 2020 recipients!

We are proud to celebrate EECB students Madeleine Lohman (mentor Perry Williams), Tara Christensen (mentors Lee Dyer, Angela Marie Smilanich), Keely Rodriguez (mentor Jamie Voyles), and Lauren Benedict (mentor Vladimir Pravosudov).

Celebrating Black Mammalogists

Celebrating Black Mammalogists Week, please consider donating to the BIPOC scholarship award administered by the American Society of Mammalogists. Please share with all organismal biologists you know! And, encourage your professional societies to create diversity-enhancing fellowships!