Spring 2009

• Graduate student Julie Rushmore received a Fullbright Fellowship to conduct field work in Uganda beginning in August 2009.

• Undergraduate student Jean Chi presents her undergraduate honors project (on monarch immunity, flight and morphology) on April 6 at the annual CURO symposium. Jean also received a summer internship to work at the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor, NJ, and a scholarship from Erasmus Mundus to study conservation biology in Europe starting in Fall 2009.

• Sonia Altizer and Mike Maudsley travelled to Texas to collect monarch eggs, larvae and adults in March 2009. Pictures of our trip can be seen here.

• Becky Bartel and Mike Maudsley travelled to four Hawaiian islands for monarch butterfly-parasite field work in January 2009.

• In January 2009, the lab welcomed Adam Haviland and Randy Singer, who are assisting postdocs Barbara Han and Patrick Stephens in updating our databases on parasites from wild ungulates.

• Daniel Streicker participated in the 2009 workshop on molecular evolution in the Czech Republic in January 2009.

• Congratulations to Christina Faust, who received a 2009 George J. Mitchell fellowship to study global health and immunology at the National University of Ireland.

• Undergraduate Ernie Osburn received a fellowship to pursue PhD studies in the laboratory of Dr. Karen Lips at the University of Maryland, starting in Fall 2009.

• PhD students Shan Huang, Julie Rushmore, and Jamie Winternitz presented talks at the 2009 Ecology Graduate Student Symposium. Congratulations to Julie for receiving a prize for the 'best talk on proposed research.'

Fall 2008

• Becky Bartel, Mike Maudsley and Sonia Altizer travelled to the UGA-Costa Rica research station for monarch butterfly-parasite field work in December 2008. For photos of the trip, click here.

• Sonia Altizer received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), and participated in ceremonies at NSF and the White House on December 19. To view a press release on this award, click here.

• A collaborative CDC-UGA seed grant was awarded to Daniel Streicker, Pej Rohani, Sonia Altizer and Charles Rupprecht to study anthropogenic factors affecting rabies virus epidemics in vampire bats.

• Julie Rushmore received a primate conservation grant from the Margot Marsh Foundation to support her PhD work.

• Welcome to Dr. Barbara Han, who received a 2-yr NSF postoctoral fellowship to study how host body size and allometric scaling of epidemiological parameters affects the dynamics of infectious diseases.

• In September, the lab welcomed Dr. Rebecca (Becky) Bartel, who received a 3-yr NIH Ruth Kirschstein postdoctoral fellowship  to work on the ecological dynamics of the monarch-parasite interactions using a combination of mathematical models, spatial data analysis and experiments.  

• Thanks to Donna Gast and Samantha Burton, who presented a workshop on Project MonarchHealth in September 2008 for the Georgia Butterfly Symposium at Callaway Gardens, Pine Mountain, VA.

• Congratulations to PhD student Elizabeth Lindsey, who defended her doctoral dissertation on October 8!  The title of Elizabeth's thesis:  “Ecological determinants of host resistance to parasite infection in monarch butterflies”

• Undergraduate student Kristal Richardson has begun working with graduate student Jamie Winternitz as part of an LSAMP-sponsored research project.

• Undergraduate Margeaux Maerz recently started assisting with monarch butterfly research and the MonarchHealth citizen science project.

• Welcome to undergraduate Jeff Shapiro, who began adding data to our database on carnivore infectious diseases under the supervision of graduate student Shan Huang.

• In October, lab researcher Mike Maudsley and undergraduate Ernie Osburn travelled to Puerto Rico to conduct field work on monarch butterfly parasites.

Summer 2008

• Several graduate students spent the summer engaged in field work abroad or in remote locations:
  
  Julie Rushmore traveled to Uganda and Rwanda to identify field sites and collaborators for research on infectious diseases in chimpanzees and other ape species.
  Jamie Winternitz spent the summer at Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in  Gothic, Colorado chasing down elusive montane voles for a study of genetic diversity and parasite infections.
  Daniel Streicker  traveled by motor bike across Peru to capture vampire bats and sample them for rabies virus infections.
  Christina Faust visited several locations in China as part of a UGA-sponsored training program on invasive species in the US and China.

• Undergrads in the Altizer lab participated in several summer courses and study-abroad programs:
  
  Ernie Osburn studied at the UGA-Costa Rica field station for Maymester 2008.
  Jean Chi travelled to Budapest and other parts of Europe for summer session I.
  Cecilia Nix took part in UGA’s study abroad program in Brazil.
  Samantha Burton participated in a marine mammal ecology course.
  JR McMillan studied organic farming practices in a course through the ecology program.

• In June, Sonia Altizer taught a field course on wildlife disease ecology at Mountain Lake Biological Station in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, together with Amy Pedersen and Dana Hawley.  For a flyer of the course, click here, and to see our class photos, click here.  We had ‘the time of our lives’ and taught a fantastic group of students!

Spring 2008

• A new study by former postdoc Jaap de Roode, Sonia Altizer and Andrew Yates on virulence evolution in monarch parasites is published in PNAS. To see a press release on this study, click here. This article was also highlighted as an Editor's Choice in Science.

• Graduate students Julie Rushmore, Jamie Winternitz, Daniel Streicker, Shan Huang, and Christina Faust presented their research at the annual Ecology Graduate Student Symposium in January.

• Mike Maudsley, Jamie Winternitz and Sonia Altizer participated in a 10-day trip to Mexico for field work on monarch butterflies in February 2008. We joined researchers Jaap de Roode and Rachel Rarick from Emory University, and were also joined by evolutionary biologist Jeff Smith (Indiana University) and writer Adam Federman ( New York). We visited four different monarch wintering colonies, survived a flat tire, cold weather and some very bumpy roads, and sampled over 1500 butterflies for parasites. Click here to view an online photo album from the trip.

• The Altizer lab was featured in the Winter 2008 UGA research magazine - Click here to read the full article.

• Undergraduate Jean Chi presented her research findings at the annual Graduate Student Symposium in January 2008, and at UGA's CURO undergraduate research symposium in March 2008.

• Graduate student Daniel Streicker received a Young Explorer’s grant from the National Geographic Society to support his field work on vampire bat ecology, land use change and rabies virus dynamics. Daniel also received travel funds from the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program at UGA for a collaborative project involving the role of vampire bats in Peruvian ecosystems.

• Graduate student Julie Rushmore received a competitive travel grant from the UGA School of Veterinary Medicine to support her field work on primate behavior and infectious diseases in Uganda during summer 2008.

• Congratulations to graduate student Jamie Winternitz, who received the Robert A. Sheldon Memorial Travel Award and the Dean Lindholm Memorial Travel Award from the Odum School of Ecology to support her field work in Colorado during summer 2008. Jamie also received an NIH training-grant fellowship from UGA’s Center for Tropical and Global Emerging Diseases under the guidance of Dr. Pej Rohani.

• Sonia Altizer was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor at UGA.

• Joint BS/MS student Christina Faust was named a 2008 Morris K. Udall Scholar, and a 2008 Harry S. Truman Scholar. Both awards carry funds to support postgraduate work in environmental science and policy.

• Welcome back to undergraduate JR McMillan, who returned in May 2008 from a spring semester abroad in New Zealand and Australia.

  Fall 2007

• Congratulations and good luck to former postdoc Jaap de Roode, who begins a faculty position at Emory University in January 2008. Click here to check out Jaap’s new lab webpages.

• Welcome to undergraduate Cecilia Nix, who will assist PhD student Julie Rushmore in compiling data focused on previous studies of parasite infections in captive primates.

• Welcome to Mike Maudsley, who joined the lab as a Research Technician III in November 2007. Mike obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Entomology from UGA in 2007, and has been studying butterflies for many years!

• Welcome to undergraduate Ernie Osburn, who will assist with lab research projects, together with students Samantha Burton, Jean Chi and JR McMillan.

• Sonia Altizer presented a talk at the Jacques Monod Conference in Roscoff, France in September 2007. This meeting focused on the Evolutionary Genetics of Host-Parasite Relationships and was organized by Dieter Ebert and Gabrielle Sorci.

• Lab members Jean Chi, Samantha Burton and teacher Donna Gast organized a booth on project MonarchHealth for the annual Insectival at the Georgia State Botanical Gardens.

• Sonia Altizer presented the keynote address for Georgia's first annual Butterfly Symposium held at the Fernbank Science Center in Atlanta.

• Three new PhD students launched their graduate studies in August 2007: welcome to Julie Rushmore (BS Duke University ), Byron Ledbetter (BA University of Georgia), and Shan Huang (MS Imperial College, UK).

Summer 2007

• The Altizer lab was featured in the UGA research magazine - Click here for the article.

• Congratulations and good luck to UGA seniors Natalie Kolleda and Rachel Rarick, who graduated on May 11! To see photos of Rachel's graduation party, click here.

• Welcome to undergraduates Samantha Burton and JR McMillan, who will assist with lab research projects during summer 2007.

• Postdoc Jaap de Roode and graduate students Daniel Streicker and Jamie Winternitz participated in the 2007 Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases workshop and conference at Cornell University in May 2007. 

• Congratulations to postdoc Jaap de Roode, who accepted a faculty position at Emory University’s department of Biology, to begin in January 2007.

• Check out Sonia Altizer on the Today Show segment for Meredith Viera’s “Animal Adventure” with monarch butterflies (aired May 16, 2007)

• Welcome to Dr. Charles DeCurtis, who joined the lab as a Research Professional in May 2007. Charles obtained his PhD in 2002 from the Institute of Ecology, and most recently worked as director of science at the Nature Conservancy.

• Congratulations to PhD student Catherine Bradley, who recieved the Margaret Nice Award from the American Ornithologists Union ($1500) for her project entitled “Linking avifaunal community assemblage to avian malaria lineage diversity and prevalence."

• Congratulations to Jamie Winternitz, who recieved student grants from the Animal Behavior Society ($1000) and the Lewis and Clark Exploration Fund ($1400) to study sociality and infectious disease transmission in wild mammals, and to Daniel Streicker, who recieved a Graduate Research Travel Award from UGA's Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute ($1550) and a Lewis and Clark Exploration Fund award ($4900) to support his studies of rabies virus ecology in vampire bats in Central America.

• Sonia Altizer participated in a symposium at the July 2007 International Conference on the Biology of Butterflies, held in Rome, Italy. She also co-organized a symposium and presentation for the annual Ecological Society of America meeting in August 2007 in San Jose, CA.

Spring 2007

• Several lab members participated in a week-long trip to Mexico for field work on monarch butterflies in January. We joined long-time monarch researcher Lincoln Brower, students from Virginia and UNAM, visited three different monarch wintering sites, and sampled over 1500 butterflies for parasites. Click here to view an online photo album from the trip.

• PhD students Jamie Winternitz and Daniel Streicker, together with undergraduates Natalie Kolleda, Byron Ledbetter and Jean Chi, gave talks and posters as part of the 2007 Graduate Student Symposium.  Congratulations to Daniel who won top honors for the best graduate student talk, and to Jean and Natalie who won first and second prize respectively for the poster session.

• Dr. Dieter Ebert presented a seminar in the Institute of Ecology on host-pathogen coevolution in metapopulations on Feb 27. Many thanks to him for a stimulating presentation and a lab discussion on the evolution of virulence.

• Sonia Altizer was awarded an NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) for a proposal titled “Animal migrations and infectious disease dynamics: monarch butterflies as a global case study.”  Click here for a news release on the project and here for a project summary on NSF’s website. 

• Research by Sonia Altizer and Jaap de Roode was featured in a news article in the Athens Banner-Herald on March 12, 2007.  Click here to view a copy of the article.

• Congratulations to Daniel Streicker who was awarded an NSF predoctoral fellowship in March 2007! Also congratulations to Byron Ledbetter and Julie Rushmore who were awarded graduate fellowships from the University of Georgia to start their PhD studies this coming fall.

• Dr. Lincoln Brower and Dr. Ottar Bjornstad presented seminars during April 2007 in the Institute of Ecology, focused on (1) monarch butterfly migration and (2) the spread and dynamics of gypsy moth populations.

• Undergraduates Jean Chi, Rachel Rarick and Natalie Kolleda presented posters during the 2007 UGA CURO Student Symposium on April 9. Click here to see the student posters.

• Findings from a research paper by Sonia Altizer and colleagues on parasites in threatened primates were featured in articles in Conservation Magazine and in New Scientist. To view a copy of the Conservation Magazine article, click here. To read the original paper, click here.

Fall 2006

• The lab bid farewell to postdoc Amy Pedersen in November 2006. Amy moved on to a Royal Society postdoctoral position at the University of Sheffield in the UK. Click here to see the farewell photo, and here to view pictures from Amy’s goodbye party.

• Welcome to Julie Rushmore, who will be working in the lab as a research technician. Julie graduated from Duke University and will be pursuing a DVM at UGA.

• Jaap de Roode was featured in the UGA Research Magazine. The article, "Survivor: Piece of an Evolutionary Puzzle" appeared in the Fall 2006 issue. Click here to view a copy of the article.

• Dr. Janis Antonovics presented a seminar in the Institute of Ecology on infectious diseases at habitat margins and also visited several of his former students in our lab. Many thanks to him for a stimulating presentation.

• Students and monarch butterfly researchers participated in the 2006 Insectival at the State Botanical Gardens in Athens, hosting a booth to publicize the MonarchHealth citizen science project. The live caterpillars and butterflies were a hit with children and adults. Click here to view photos from the festival, or here to view an article reproduced from the Athens Banner-Herald.

• Welcome to new PhD students Daniel Streicker and Jamie Winternitz! Daniel completed his undergraduate work at the University of Virginia, and has worked most recently at the CDC on the ecology and transmission of bat rabies. Jamie finished her bachelors degree at UCLA and has worked most recently studying marmot ecology and behavior at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.

Summer 2006

• Several Altizer and Rohani lab postdocs and graduate students presented their research findings at the annual Ecological Society of America meeting, including: Amy Pedersen, Catherine Bradley, Jaap de Roode, Helen Wearing, Dan Vasco, Matt Bonds, Marc Choisy, and Hanh Nguyen.

• Baby girl Sophia Rae Rohani was born on August 24 to Pej and Rebecca!

• Congratulations to graduate student Elizabeth Lindsey, who welcomed twins Lauren and Caleb in late July.

• Jaap de Roode spearheaded a large experiment to examine the relationship between transmission and virulence of the monarch butterfly parasite, O. elektroscirrha

• The first volunteer-collected parasite samples for the new MonarchHealth citizen science project were returned to our lab this month. Click here for more information about this project.

• Several undergraduates have joined the lab to assist with summer research, including newcomers Maggie Horne, Jean Chi and Carmel Norman, and 'veterans' Rachel Rarick and Byron Ledbetter.

• We were saddened to learn that a former undergraduate assistant and Emory University alumnus Zachary Baumann passed away suddenly on May 23. Zach worked with us for 3 consecutive summers and he will be greatly missed.

Spring 2006

• Phase II lab was completed in May 2006, with facilities for monarch rearing, microscopy, molecular work and a biosafety cabinet. For pictures, see the facilities webpage.

• Congratulations to Amy Pedersen on receiving two postdoctoral fellowship awards last month (including one from The Royal Society) to study pathogen evolution in insect hosts.

• Altizer and Rohani lab members attend 4th annual Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases meeting at Penn State University, where Wearing, Pedersen and de Roode presented talks.

• A new book is released by Charlie Nunn and Sonia Altizer - Infectious Diseases in Primates: Behavior, Ecology and Evolution - as part of the Oxford Series in Ecology and Evolution from Oxford University Press. Click here for a press release on the book from UGA.

• Amy and Sonia travel to Washington, D.C. for a meeting on "Infectious Diseases and Mammal Connservation" co-organized with Charlie Nunn and held at Conservation International.

• Many monarch adults and larvae were captured during the spring migration through the Athens area in April and May.

• Graduate student Cat Bradley, Susan Sanchez, Margie Lee and others collaborate on a songbird- Salmonella project and isolate their first positive bacterial sample from a Brown Thrasher in April.

• In March we welcomed two guest speakers, Dr. Peter Daszak from the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, and Dr. Rosie Woodroffe from UC Davis, who presented seminars at the Institute of Ecology.

• UGA kicks off its new Infectious Disease Ecology Initiative. For more information, click here.

• In February, Dr. Andy Fenton visited the lab from the University of Liverpool, and Dr. Jonathan Davies visited from the University of Virginia.

• Sonia travelled to the University of Montana and Washington State University to visit colleagues and present seminars.

• In January, postdoc Jaap de Roode returned from a 2-week trip to Queensland, Australia that included many encounters with monarch butterflies.

• In January, postdoc Amy Pedersen co-taught an undergraduate seminar course in Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Virginia.

Fall 2005

• In December, Sonia Altizer and Andy Davis were invited speakers at a conference in San Louis Obispo, CA, on the population dynamics of the monarch butterfly. Over 100 people were in attendance, including monarch researchers from across Canada, the United States and Mexico. For a press release of the conference click here.

• Congratulations to Jaap de Roode for having his recent paper highlighted on the American Naturalist homepage! The paper, entitled "Dynamics of multiple infection and within-host competition in genetically diverse malaria infections" was chosen as the journal's feature article for the month of November. Authors were Jacobus C. de Roode, Michelle E.H. Helinski, M. Ali Anwar, and Andrew F. Read. Click here to jump to the Am. Nat. homepage.

• In November, the lab welcomed new postdoc, Amy Pedersen, a recent graduate from the University of Virginia, and an expert on host parasite dynamics.

• Congratulations to Jaap de Roode for receiving a Marie Curie Fellowship for postdoctoral training from the European Union. The award will support 2 years of training at the University of Georgia followed by 1 year at the University of Edinburgh in the laboratory of Andrew Read.

• Lab manager Andy Davis was accepted to the PhD program in the Warnell School of Forest Resources at the University of Georgia, where he will begin graduate studies in January.

• Our lab has officially moved to the Institute of Ecology at UGA!

Summer 2005

• Graduate student Elizabeth Lindsey was awarded an NSF-PRISM fellowship for the second year in a row. This award provides stipend support and training for science programs in K-12 education.

• In July 2005, Sonia Altizer returned from co-teaching a month-long field course with Amy Pedersen at Mountain Lake Biological Station. See a picture of the class here.

• Catherine Bradley, Sonia Altizer and collaborators at UGA and the CDC received a $48,000 year-long research grant from the Southeastern Center for Emerging Biologic Threats to study the ecology of zoonotic pathogens in wild songbirds around the metro-Atlanta area.

• New study by Dr. Sonia Altizer and grad student, Cat Bradley, is highlighted as the Editor's Choice in the journal, Science!   See the article here.

• For more news about monarch butterflies and their parasites, visit our new webpage www.monarchparasites.org