Lab Alumni
Nikki Lemus (2021-2024, lab technician)
Nikki received their BA degree from Integrative Biology in 2020. They continued to work in the MVZ and the Tarvin lab through May 2024 in bird curatorial and the toxic fruit fly project led by Tyler Douglas. Nikki received an NSF GRFP in 2024 and will be starting graduate school in the Peterson Lab at the University of Kansas in Fall 2024.
Contact: nikki800 [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Ines Huret (2022-2024, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Ines graduated with a BA in Integrative Biology a minor in Data Science in May 2024. She completed an honors thesis co-advised by Dr. Conti-Jerpe, Dr. Tarvin, and Dr. Dawson on anemone isotopic niches. She was awarded the IB Department Natural History Award, which celebrates achievement in natural history and organismal biology. She will start a two-year lab technician position in the Pellman Lab at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in June 2024.
Contact: ines.huret [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Dr. Genevieve Mount (2021-2023, NSF Postdoc)
Genna completed an NSF PRFB in our lab, coadvised by the Womack Lab at Utah State University on the evolutionary drivers and consequences of sexually selected trait loss. She investigated vocal sac loss in frogs,
Genna started working as a bioinformatician at Boehringer Ingelheim in Sept 2023.
Contact: ggmountt [at] gmail [dot] com
Veryan Brown (2022-2022, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Veryan graduated in December 2022.
Contact: veryanbrown [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Novia Kayfetz-Vuong (2021-2022, UC undergraduate researcher)
Novia graduated in 2022 and is now working in biotech.
Contact: noviakayfetzvuong [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Sofia Guajardo Beskid (2021, NSF REU)
Sofia graduated UT in Spring 2022 and as of 2023 is a graduate student at Stanford. Sofia was a coauthor on our Douglas et al., 2022 paper about the use of nicotine in fruit flies against wasp parasites.
Contact: sbeskid [at] utexas [dot] edu
Yin Chen Wan (2018-2020, visiting undergraduate researcher & lab technician)
Yin graduated with a degree in Genetics from University College Dublin in May 2020 and as of 2020 is pursuing a PhD in Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. While in the lab, Yin did her honors thesis working on visual opsin evolution in poison frogs (Chen et al., 2023).
Contact: yinchen202009 [at] gmail [dot] com
Nuzha Baksh (2023-2024, lab technician)
Nuzha graduated from UCSB in 2022 with a B.S. in Zoology and a Minor in Linguistics. Nuzha worked as a lab assistant in the Tarvin Lab to study toxin sequestering fruit flies. Nuzha also helped establish the poison dart frog colony. Nuzha started as a PhD student at the University in Georgia in Fall 2024.
Contact: nnb25826 [at] uga [dot] edu
Natalie Meyer (2023-2024, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Natalie received a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology in May 2024. She completed a thesis on developmental variation of tetrodotoxin in Taricha newts co-advised by Kannon Pearson and Dr. Tarvin. She will be a research assistant at the Stoller Lab at UCSF during summer 2024, and then a research assistant at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus starting fall 2024.
Contact: nataliemeyer [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Poppy Northing (2022-2023, Lab technician)
Poppy received her BS in Biology from Haverford College and spent a year as a lab technician in our group managing the evolving toxic fruit flies experiment. She started her PhD at the University of Arizona in Fall 2023.
Contact: pcnorthing [at] arizona [dot] edu
Bri Baumbach (2021-2022, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Bri graduated in 2023 and as of 2023 is working in the Jepson Herbarium
Contact: bribaumbach [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Zahara Gianni Gali (2021-2022, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Zahara worked with Kannon Pearson on a review of chemical defenses in amphibians. She graduated in Spring 2022.
Contact: zzrock [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Kate Montana (2019-2020, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Kate graduated from IB in May 2020. Kate was awarded the Department’s Award in Natural History. While in the lab, Kate conducted an honors thesis on potential TTX resistance in Pacific Chorus Frogs that are sympatric with toxin newts (Montana et al., 2023). Kate obtained a masters degree at the CAS in 2023 and will start a PhD in the Ware Lab at AMNH/CUNY in Fall 2024.
Contact: kmontana [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Marley Michel (2024-2024)
Marley started at UCB in Fall 2023. She spent her first year working in the frog colony in the Tarvin Lab. She intends to major in MCB and left the lab in Fall 2024 to seek other research opportunities.
Contact: marleyraemichel [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Vasheeigaran Shenthan (2021-2024, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Vashee received a BA in Molecular and Cell Biology in May 2024. During his time in the lab Vashee contributed to a large, ongoing review of chemical defenses in amphibians overseen by Kannon Pearson. He is planning to pursue a degree in medicine and is currently (May 2024) waiting to hear which medical school he will attend.
Contact: vashee.shen [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Dr. Inga Conti-Jerpe (2021-2023, NSF Postdoc)
Inga completed an NSF PRFB in our lab coadvised by Todd Dawson (UC Berkeley). While in the lab, Inga developed new protocols for measuring trophic niches of plants, fungi, and marine organisms. Inga left for a tenure-track job at Lingnan University in 2023.
Marc Bonnot (2021-2022, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Marc left the lab in 2022 to continue in another research position at the MVZ.
Contact: mpb0614 [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Dr. Lawrence Uricchio (2019-2021, Postdoc)
Lawrence joined the tenure-track faculty at Tufts University in 2021.
Kannon Pearson (2020-2021, UC undergraduate researcher)
Kannon graduated from UC Berkeley in May 2021 and then joined the lab as a graduate student. As an undergraduate, Kannon did an honors thesis reviewing the ecology and evolution of chemical defenses in Harlequin toads (Pearson and Tarvin 2022).
Luis Jazo (2021-2022, UCB undergraduate researcher and lab technician)
Luis graduated in Spring 2022 and has been working in biotech since then.
Contact: luisjazo [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Ameya Joshi (2021-2023, UCB undergraduate researcher)
During his time in the lab Ameya worked on the experimental evolution project led by Tyler. Douglas. Ameya left the lab in 2023 to continue in another research position at UCB. He aims to graduate in 2025 and pursue a degree in medicine.
Contact: ameyajoshi [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Dr. Tyler Douglas (2019-2023, PhD student)
Tyler completed his PhD in the UC Berkeley Integrative Biology program in the Tarvin Lab. His research was focused on the experimental evolution of chemical defense in fruit flies (Douglas et al., 2022, Douglas et al., in prep) and on genome size evolution in poison frogs (Douglas et al., bioRxiv).
Tyler graduated in December 2023 and will seek out work in biotech or clinical research starting in 2024.
Contact: tyler.douglas [at] berkeley [dot] edu
Connor Tumelty (2020-2022, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Connor graduated in 2023 and as of 2024 was pursuing a PhD in plant biology at UC Davis.
Kristen Tamsil (2018-2020, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Kristen graduated from UC Berkeley in May 2020 and as of 2023 she currently in med school at Touro in Vallejo. Kristen was a coauthor on our Douglas et al., 2022 paper about the use of nicotine in fruit flies against wasp parasites.
Noah Martin (2019-2020, UCB undergraduate researcher)
Noah graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Integrative Biology in May 2020.
Noah was awarded the 2019 Conchologists of America Academic Grant!
Zongzhuang (Sanderling) Liu (Visiting student 2019)
Zongzhuang graduated in 2020 and is currently (2023) a Masters student studying Ecology and Conservation at Uppsala University, Sweden
Rachel Ong (2020-2021, UC undergraduate)