分类: IBES - Conservation & Molecular Ecology @Brown

Conservation & Molecular Ecology @Brown

Montana Stone's award-winning photo featured by Brown's Medical School

2/28/2025

The magazine Medicine@Brown featured Montana Stone's award-winning photo of "Zorro" -- a culpeo fox -- taken at our long-term ecological research site in Fray Jorge National Park in Chile. It's a fantastic shot of an amazing, and poorly known predator. As the BioMed communications team said, this image from Montana's field work is a poignant way to remind people that our mission in the Division is to advance the "health of people AND planet." We always love to remind people that our health is intimately, and inextricably, linked to what's happening in nature and around the planet.

In spring 2024, I spent a month collecting data for my doctoral research as part of the longest-running ecological experiment of its type in Fray Jorge National Park, Chile. One evening, after a long day of fieldwork under the intense Chilean sun, an Andean zorro (Lycalopex culpaeus) emerged near our field station. The fox, both curious and cautious, watched us intently as we wrapped up for the day. Sensing the rare opportunity, I quickly captured a photo before it vanished into the brush. Experiences like this fuel my determination to understand the cascading impacts on ecosystems if remarkable creatures like the Andean zorro were to face extinction
-Montana Stone

Exciting new Lab Manager position in my lab

8/30/2023

I am extremely excited to share a new job opportunity as a core member of our group: Lab Manager in Ecological Genomics at Brown.

This is such a unique career opportunity in our field. The position will be salaried, starting around $60,000, and it is expected to provide job security, stability, and community over the long term. There will also be opportunities for career growth as we work together to establish a new Ecological Genomics center via Brown’s Genomics Core Facility. You will be able to help shape the future of your own position.

From an insider's perspective, we very rarely see opportunities as good as this one. The formal job ad is pasted below.

Please feel free to distribute via your networks or social media to help ensure any potential candidates you know may apply.

Welcome Dr. Mary Burak!

8/21/2023

The lab is incredibly excited to welcome Mary Burak! Mary is joining the lab as a Fulbright Scholar based in Kenya followed by an IBES Voss Postdoctoral Fellowship. Together these prestigious awards will support Mary for three years both in Kenya and at Brown. Mary will collaborate with a number of major NGOs as well as scholars at the University of Nairobi, the National Museums of Kenya, and Mpala Research Centre to address critical data needs for the conservation of large carnivores and herbivores across Kenya.

Mary completed a PhD in Os Schmitz's lab at Yale University in 2023. She is a star and we are so keen to learn from her and collaborate with her over the next few years and beyond!

Summer research ramp up and welcomes

6/10/2021

While everyone in the lab continues to be impacted by the global pandemic, we also pause to appreciate our increased opportunity to begin resuming research and to extend our welcome to the new lab members who are joining us this summer.

Welcome to Ezequiel Vanderhoeven, D.V.M., Ph.D., and congratulations on your CONICET international postdoctoral fellowship!
Welcome and congratulations to Fabiola Meyer-Garza who has earned a Voss Undergraduate Research Fellowship to conduct a thesis in the lab!
Welcome to Caroline Dressler, an undergraduate researcher and musician who plans to do senior research in the lab!
Welcome to Andy Luo, a rising junior who is starting research on lizard thermal ecology in the lab!
Welcome to Camela Moore and congratulations on your award from the Leadership Alliance!
Welcome to Logan Torres from the Brown Presidential Scholars Program!

Congratulations all around!

5/14/2020

The lab has much to celebrate as we close out another semester, even despite the disruptions of COVID-19.

Congratulations to Patrick Freeman for earning a Masters based on a thesis comparing ecological hypotheses about the distributions of plants and large herbivores in Kenya!
Congratulations to incoming Voss postdoc Colin Donihue for publishing several high-impact papers, including one featured on the cover of PNAS (generating a buzz in the NY Times and elsewhere) and one in Nature Ecology and Evolution!
Congratulations to Courtney Reed for winning a grant from the American Philosophical Society’s Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration & Field Research!
Congratulations to seniors graduating with amazing research accomplishments: Amanda Lyons (Honors), Catherine Porter, and Violet Sackett!
Congratulations to Amanda Lyons '20 for admission into Brown's 5th year Masters program to conduct research on diamondback terrapins in collaboration with governmental and non-profit partners, and with generous support from a Diamondback Terrapin Working Group Grant!
Congratulations to Cate Porter '20 for admission into the University of Virginia's Environmental Science graduate program!
Congratulations to Jen Guyton (Princeton PhD) for earning the cover of Nature Ecology and Evolution based on our work to understand and restore the ecosystems of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique!
Congratulations to Ashley Bang '19 on her upcoming position in Lian Pin Koh's lab at the National University of Singapore!

Grad student honors and awards

3/25/2020

Honors and awards are rolling in...

Congratulations to Bianca Brown for a 2020 Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship Honorable Mention!
Congratulations to Courtney Reed for a 2020 Animal Behavior Society Student Research Grant!

Visitors from the Rhode Island School of Design

2/4/2020

Bianca Brown gives a lab tour to students from RISD, January 2020.

Bianca Brown -- Ph.D. candidate, NSF Graduate Research Fellow, microbiomics extraordinaire -- recently invited 22 undergraduate students from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to tour the lab. Bianca gave a lecture on strategies for using art to communicate science. The group discussed several ongoing projects in the Kartzinel Lab as examples of how art can be used to better aid the public's understanding and engagement in science. Bianca led students on lab tour where they learned about how we get DNA out of animal dung and blood samples in the course of our work. The Brown-RISD connection is a unique and special part of living and working in Providence.

Diamondback Terrapin Working Group Meeting

10/28/2019

Amanda Lyons presented a poster at the recent 2019 Diamondback Terrapin Working Group meeting in Wilmington, NC. The presentation shared information about Amanda's innovative turtle-trapping methods, the benefits of capture-mark-release studies for understanding the ecology of the species, and new work in the Kartzinel Lab to apply molecular tools to our understanding of terrapin biology. The presentation was co-authored by grad-student mentor Bianca Brown, and earned a prize as one of the best student presentations--a testament to the impacts of our conservation research and Voss Undergraduate Fellows programs. Congratulations to Amanda and Bianca for this excellent contribution!

2019 Diamondback Terrapin Conservation Genetics Field Season

4/16/2019

Last week, Amanda Lyons (left) and Bianca Brown (right) braved the rainy weather to kick off our terrapin field season. Diamondback terrapins are the only "critically imperiled" reptile in Rhode Island, and a major conservation priority for the state. Amanda and Bianca were joined by our collaborators from the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management and The Roger Williams Park Zoo. Our research goal is to understand how genetically interconnected are the remaining few terrapin populations in the state, and relatedness to populations from neighboring states. This research is supported in part by a 2019 Voss Undergraduate Research Fellowship in Environmental Science and Communication to Amanda Lyons. Congratulations Amanda, and thanks IBES for supporting this research.

If only the weather had been better for setting up the study sites!

Patrick Freeman presents on collaboration with the National Park Service

4/15/2019

Patrick Freeman presented a poster at the IBES Blue Sky that focuses on our ongoing collaboration with Yellowstone National Park. We are working with the National Park Service to elucidate changes in the diets of GPS-collared large-mammal species over the course of their annual migrations. The research that Patrick presented was the culmination of our semester-long research project in BIOL 1515/2015 last fall (he was an amazing TA!). Class participants received dietary samples from the park, extracted DNA from them, performed DNA metabarcoding to analyze animal diets, and prepared reports for the patterns at the park. In this CURE-formatted course, students have a real-world conservation impact. Thanks, Patrick, for your leadership on this project and for presenting your work. This class will be even more exciting and impactful when we offer it again in 2020, thanks to support from HHMI and The Sheridan Center for Teaching & Learning.