Photo by Faith Walker
Jeff Foster, Professor in the Pathogen and Microbiome Institute
Associate Chair & Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Biological Sciences
I work on pathogen evolution and disease ecology in wildlife and livestock. Current research foci include white-nose syndrome in bats, brucellosis in a range of hosts, metabarcoding of animal diets, and avian malaria in birds. Much of my training was in avian ecology and conservation, focusing on native and introduced birds in Hawaii and elsewhere. I continue to work in the Hawaiian Islands on seed dispersal and native forest birds (vicariously through lucky students).
John Gillece, M.S., Data Scientist
John is a bioinformatician working on bacterial genomics and metabarcoding analyses, among other things.
Kelsey Banister, M.S., Research Assistant and Lab Manager
Kelsey works on diagnostics for detection of Pd in samples from bats for White-Nose Syndrome surveillance and detection of the malaria parasite Plasmodium relictum in Hawaiian birds, among other things.
Alexandra Gibson, M.S., Research Assistant and Lab Manager
Alexandra works on metabarcoding of animal diets and assessing viruses in North American bat populations, among other things.
Emma Froehlich, Research Technician
Emma works on disease ecology and feces projects in birds and bats. She also works with Faith Walker on similar projects. Yes, she loves poop.
Damian Johns, M.S., Research Assistant
Damian works on the biology of Pseudogymnoascus destructans and White-Nose Syndrome in the Southwest.
Sara Gabrielson, PhD Student
Sara is interested in seed dispersal networks and is working on a project in Hawaii on how non-native birds are influencing native and non-native plant communities.
John Neddermeyer, PhD Student
John is studying resistance and tolerance mechanisms to avian malaria in Hawaiian Honeycreepers. His primary interests are in ecological immunology and disease ecology. Before starting at NAU, John worked in consulting conducting ecological risk assessments and supporting NEPA compliance. He hails from the Bronx, NY but we don't hold that against him.
Pete Motyka, PhD Student
Pete works on the role of birds in the spread and maintenance of tick-borne relapsing fever (TBRF).
He comes from the lab of the Dr. Nate Nieto, an amazing colleague that we lost far too early.
Kelly Jaenecke, PhD Student
Kelly is working on the effects of Rapid Ohia Death on the diets of Hawaiian birds in forests of the Big Island. She is an NSF-GRFP Fellow.
Morgan Hughes, PhD student
Morgan is investigating the seasonal dynamics and landscape ecology of bat communities in the highly fragmented equatorial dry forests of Peru and Ecuador. She is an NSF-GRFP Fellow and also work with Dr. Faith Walker in the Bat Ecology & Genetics Lab.
Jenny Jackson, PhD student
Jenny is interested in avian malaria in Hawaii and mosquito control efforts.
Undergraduate Researchers
Lab Alumni
Work in progress. Gone but not forgotten.
Katy Parise, M.S., Lab Manager
Katy oversaw all aspects of day to day operations of the lab, particularly white-nose syndrome diagnostics (more specifically Pd detection). She is a qPCR master. Her cat was named Foster. He was unkind.
Becky Mau, M.S., Lab Manager
Becky oversaw metabarcoding analyses of bird and bat diets as well as microbiome work. Her dog is named Foster. Just kidding, its name is Jeffrey.
Tamara Szentiványi, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow
Tamara was a Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. Her work focuses on the global patterns of bacterial pathogens in bats and ecological factors that may drive these distributions. During her PhD she worked on bat-associated ectoparasites and vector-borne pathogens in bats. Tamara's personal website.
Molly Bechtel, PhD
Molly was a PhD student with research focusing on ticks and tick-borne pathogens of Mojave desert tortoises. Molly plans to continue researching interactions between wildlife, disease and public health either as a government researcher or in academia. Need more info? Check out mjbechtel.weebly.com
Devon O'Rourke, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Associate
Devon worked on projects describing the diversity and abundance of insects in bat diets - check out his work here and how bats may be evolving resistance/tolerance to white-nose syndrome. He now lives on Cape Cod and is the COO of Cornerstone Genomics.
Kevin Drees, Ph.D.
Kevin worked as a bioinformatician and microbiologist on the genomics of Pseudogymnoascus destructans and other pathogens. He is now a Research Scientist at Lonza.
Kathryn Cooney, MS Student at NAU
Kathryn studied the disease ecology of ranaviruses in amphibians the Southwest.
Kathryn was co-advised by Joe Mihaljevic in SICCS at NAU Mihaljevic Lab
Kathryn Cooney, MS Student at NAU
Kathryn studied the disease ecology of ranaviruses in amphibians the Southwest.
Kathryn was co-advised by Joe Mihaljevic in SICCS at NAU Mihaljevic Lab
Katherine Ineson, Ph.D.
Katherine's project focused on the demography of remnant populations of bats in the Northeast as they recover from white-nose syndrome. She now works as a Biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Katherine was co-advised by Dr. Becca Rowe at UNH Rowe Lab
Meghan Ange-Stark, Ph.D.
Meg worked on the microbiomes of bats affected by white-nose syndrome and the population genetics of Myotis septentrionalis. She is now a Research Health Science Specialist with OSHA.
Ruby Hammond, Graduate Student
Ruby studied the breeding biology of native forest birds on Kauai, with a particular focus on ‘Akikiki and ‘Akeke‘e. She is now a Lecturer at Eastern Washington University.
Kelsey Whitaker, MS Student at NAU
Kelsey studied the effects of malaria on forest birds in Kauai.
Marina Fisher-Phelps, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Researcher
Marina examined the effects of roads on endangered bats in New England.
She is now a Development Associate at National Audubon Society
Salman Ahmed, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Researcher
Salman grew up in Bangalore, India. His work at PMI involved molecular and bioinformatic analysis of Brucella.
Dr. Qianhong Liu, Visiting Scholar
Dr. Liu visited from the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University in Jilin, China. Her interests are Brucella pathogenesis and diagnostics.
Former Undergraduate Students