Reconstructing 10,000 Years of Caribou Diets from Melting Yukon Ice Patches

Dr. Carson Hedberg and team on an expedition to the Gladstone Ice Patch

A prestigious NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Office of Polar Programs that was awarded to Carson Hedberg is powering a new Kartzinel Lab project in the Yukon: using ancient DNA preserved in towering alpine ice patches to reconstruct thousands of years of change in caribou diets since the end of the last Ice Age. By sequencing genetic traces of food that have been locked inside caribou dung and literally frozen in time, Carson is asking how these animals have weathered past climate shifts—and what this can tell us about prospects for their future.

Bethan Littleford-Colquhoun wins 2023 Postdoctoral Excellence Award

Congratulations to Beth, for the much-deserved honor of a 2023 Postdoctoral Excellence Award in Research and Teaching from Brown University. Our lab and the entire university community are fortunate to collaborate with such a talented and dedicated leader in the field!

Beth’s scientific research is world-class. She is developing cutting-edge CRISPR-based techniques that are poised to become foundational tools in the fields of molecular ecology, food web ecology, and conservation biology. While other research wunderkinds sequester themselves, Beth has done just the opposite; she is the linchpin of the Kartzinel lab. She has expertly mentored numerous graduate and undergraduate students in the lab, but her standout achievement was in BIOL1515/2015 last Fall where she masterfully blended cutting-edge science research with creative learn-by-doing pedagogy. Beth gave those students access to authentic and impactful research experiences in the classroom that are wholly unique. I have no doubt that every undergrad from that class that goes on to a career in science will point to that semester as a pivotal experience