Spring 2021
As the weather warms, we come to the end of an academic year unlike any other. While the meetings remained virtual, the promise of a return to normalcy as more and more people get vaccinated kept spirits bright. We are happy to see each other again in person and enjoy the beautiful scenery that a New Orleans spring brings. We also have so much to celebrate!
Congratulations to our fresh PhD candidates Annelise Blanchette and Mike Ellis for successfully defending their prospectus’ and to Caroline Camus, Erin Sheehy, and Melanie Smith for successfully defending their undergraduate Honors Theses! Great job everyone!
We have many graduating students to celebrate too! Congratulations to Plus One MS student Peyton Fralick for finishing his program. Additional cheers for our graduating seniors Caroline Camus, Erin Sheehy, and Melanie Smith.
A huge congratulations to Sarah Khalil who was recently awarded the NSF Postdoc Fellowship!
The PhD students have a lot to look forward to after a whirlwind of an academic year.
John Jones finally learned to work from home and wrote two chapters of his dissertation; one chapter is currently in review and the other will be submitted shortly. In addition, John has received funding from the American Physiological Societies’ “Lewis and Clark” grant to support another trip to Papua New Guinea which will take place when it is globally safe to travel. In the meantime, he has repurposed the research on red-backed fairywrens conducted as part of his Australian Endeavor Fellowship to take center stage of his third chapter, exploring coloration in the sister species to his New Guinean songbirds. Finally, alongside another Karubian PhD student (no spoilers here!), John received the EEB department’s ‘Stephen Darwin Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award’ for his role in teaching Ecology and Experimental Animal Behavior for the 20-21 academic year.
Sarah Khalil has several updates: She has received an NSF postdoctoral fellowship in biology (PRFB), and will be starting at a postdoc in Dr. Irby Lovette’s lab at Cornell University in March 2022! She plans to defend her dissertation around November 2021. She also recently received the American Museum of Natural History Chapman Research Grant to fund her ongoing dissertation work. And on more personal news, she adopted a puppy named Frankie in January, and has been enjoying spending lots of time with him at home while she mainly works on analysis and writing.
Kaushik Narasimhan had a busy spring! At the beginning of the semester, he went to Ecuador to get the ball rolling on his 3rd chapter. After some twist and turns, he was able to collect seeds, get his shadehouse built, sterilize soil, and get his precious seeds germinating! Using plant tissue gathered during that field season, Kaushik was extracting DNA to conduct ddRAD protocols and further analysis. He is also getting ready to submit his 1st chapter for publication and another publication he co-authored was accepted for publication. Now that his seeds have germinated, Kaushik is back in Ecuador to plant his seeds to finish the setup for the experiment. When he returns over the summer, Kaushik is going to focus on ramping up a larger project in Ecuador beginning in the fall, focused on more plant species!
Annelise Blanchette successfully defended her prospectus and was awarded the EEB department’s ‘Bruce Fleury Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award’ for her role in teaching Diversity of Life during the 20-21 academic year. She also continued collaboration with local printmaker Pippin Frisbie-Calder and producer Zaferhan Yumru to create an educational video about the Mockingbird Project outreach. She finally submitted her master’s thesis manuscript to a journal and is waiting to hear back on that. She’s currently attempting to build a balance beam and treadmill for the brown anoles and will spend her summer collecting at much data as she can!
Mike Ellis added new remote sensing projects to his dissertation, successfully defended his prospectus, and was awarded a Lewis & Clark grant. After having his field work postponed all year due to the pandemic, he’s very excited to head to Ecuador and begin his Fulbright fellowship.
Luke Anderson spent several weeks in Ecuador learning to track white-bearded manakins using radio telemetry. Over the summer, he and other lab members will be embarking on an ambitious field study to determine relationships between fruit distributions and manakin space use, seed dispersal, and display behavior. He also recently published a paper in Animal Behaviour demonstrating that female cowbirds use chatter vocalizations to signal-jam male songs during courtship.
Last but not least, Jordan has had a busy semester full of reasons to celebrate!
Jordan Karubian received a Fulbright Fellowship for research and education work in Ecuador. He also received awards from the NSF for research on the factors that regulate abundance of palm trees in South America with Paul Fineand Miles Silman, and for research on plant-soil feedbacks with Tulane colleague and grant PI Sunshine Van Bael. He will be promoted to full Professor starting in July 2021 and is looking forward to spending some time in nature with his family this summer!
Read More
