Congratulations to our Principal Investigator Dr. Lori Eggert on being named a 2017 Eisenstark Faculty Fellow. This fellowship is awarded to those distinguished professors who excel in teaching, research, and service. We know our advisor excels in all these aspects and we are proud of her being selected for this fellowship.

Our colleague, Dr. Chris Pires was also awarded the Eisenstark Faculty Fellow.

Additional award recipients in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri can be found here.

Congratulations Dr. Eggert!

Happy Holidays from all of us here at the Eggert Lab. Pictured above Dr. Lori Eggert, Kris Budd, Santa, Joe Gunn, Chelsea Titus(MDC) and Austin Lynn (Galen Lab).

As always the Eggert Lab had to join in on the DBS annual door decorating contest. We ended up winning 1st place in Best Scientific Holiday Door competition with our door “the Elves who ruined Christmas”. Elves are the reason we’ve been having issues getting our experiments to work this season, definitely not our faults!

Congratulations on our PhD rotation student Joe Gunn who has officially decided to join the Eggert Lab for his PhD dissertation! We are all extremely happy that Joe will be staying with us since he has become like family to the rest of the members of the lab. Joe will be working on our Neosho Small Mouth Bass project in collaboration with the Missouri Department of Conservation. He will likely also aim to add his own epi-genetic interests into the project as well.

We’re all so happy to have Joe joining the Lab, here’s to several years another great researcher in the Eggert Lab!

This weekend Dr. Eggert and graduate students Kris Budd and Joe Gunn attended the 2016 Ecological Genomics conference. The Eggert lab has been making an appearance at this regional conference for a few years now and we are always excited to see what fascinating research our colleagues have conducted. We look forward to seeing what 2017 has to offer.

Our visiting scholars, Rachel Munds and Chelsea Titus spent this past week at the Joint meeting of the International Primatological Society and the American Society of Primatologists in Chicago, Illinois hosted by Lincoln Park Zoo’s Lester Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes.

Chelsea and Rachel both presented posters on their research investigating the evolutionary history of Lorisidae primates (Arctocebus, Loris,Nycticebus, and Perodicticus) and their phylogeny in relation to genes that influence coat color/patterning to better describe their taxonomy.

“Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo is proud to host the 26th Congress of the International Primatological Society jointly with the 39th meeting of the American Society of Primatologists. This Joint Meeting will mark the 20th anniversary since the most recent joint IPS/ASP meeting and be the first to be hosted by a zoological park.”

Our now former undergraduate researcher, Chelsea Titus, has been hired on by the Missouri Department of Conservation as a Genetics Assistant. Chelsea is the best at what she does so we are thrilled that she was given this position. Best of all the will be staying in the Eggert Lab as a visiting scholar!

Congratulations Chelsea!

Our senior grad student, Jacob Burkhart, presented at the 2016 Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists in New Orleans, Louisiana on July 6th through the 10th.

“The Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists is an annual meeting of four  scientific societies — the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists; the American Elasmobranch Society; the Herpetologists’ League; and the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles – to share current research and network with professional peers.  Graduate students compete for presentation and travel awards.” – Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists

His talk entitled “Range Wide Genetic Diversity of the Ringed Salamander” focused on his research on habitat utilization, climatic conditions, species interactions and resource utilization of the Ringed Salamander, a species of conservation concern, across its Ozark and Ouachita mountain range. This project determined the patterns of genetic diversity and structure and suggests landscape alterations that are influencing ringed salamander genetic diversity.

To learn more about Jacob and his ongoing research, click here!

Our PREP scholar, David Vasquez Jr., spent June 3rd through the 5th at the Ecology and Evolution of Infections and Disease meeting at Cornell University. The primary themes of this meeting focused around polymicrobial infection and disease, pathogen dynamics within the host, pathogen genomics, evolution and selective constraints, and disease outbreaks on the landscape scale.

David presented a poster on his recent research on a nematode brain worm that infects white-tailed deer found here in Missouri. While still early, the project is already yielding some fascinating preliminary results on native ungulate nematode infections. David had a great time at the conference, made new connections, and looks forward to the 2017 EEID conference in Santa Barbara.

To learn more about David and his ongoing research you can visit his webpage here or follow him on twitter @Vasquez_D93

Our longtime undergraduate research assistant Ben Hendrickson is gearing up for quite the summer! Ben will be graduating with his Bachelors degree in Biological Sciences this Saturday May 14th 2016. On top of that Ben has recently accepted a temporary position as an Avian Research Technician with the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project (MOFEP)!

MOFEP is a long term landscape-level study that was established in 1989 in the Ozarks of southeastern Missouri. MOFEP has current produced over 65 publications aiding in forest management systems. MOFEP was designed to ask two questions: 1) What effect do different timber harvesting techniques have on elements of a forest ecosystem at a landscape scale? 2) How do forest ecosystems change?

For more information about the MOFEP click here!

Ben plans on using this opportunity to gain valuable field experience before continuing his education and applying to ecology based PhD programs next year! Currently Ben works in the Eggert lab in collaboration with MDC on the Short Leaf Pine project, which is nearing completion, and currently is in-prep for publication.

Ben is a well accomplished, determined undergrad that we know will go far in his career.

Congrats Ben!