Interested in joining us?
We're looking for PhD students to join the lab in Fall 2024! And we regularly recruit undergraduate students each semester (though we are already at max capacity for Spring 2024). We welcome everyone of all abilities and backgrounds -- no prior experience required. We're also a pretty positive group and you hear a lot of laughter coming from our lab. Get in touch with Maria, if you'd like to learn more!
Maria Stager, PhD (PI)Maria was born and raised in the Finger Lakes of central NY. She attended Cornell University and spent a semester studying in Italy. After college, she stumbled into bird research -- working as a research assistant for projects in Argentina, Australia, and the Galapagos, among other places. This eventually led to graduate school. Maria did her graduate work with Zac Cheviron, first as a Master's student at U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and then as a PhD student at U. Montana. She then postdoced at U. South Carolina and later with Scott Taylor at CU Boulder under an NSF PRFB. Maria joined the faculty at UMass Amherst as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2022. She feels extremely fortunate to be working with such a wonderful group of people! She spends her free time with her dog, Oliver.
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Paul Dougherty (Postdoc)Paul joined the lab as an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology in Jan. 2024! Before joining us, Paul received his B.A. from Colby College and completed his PhD at the University of Wyoming where he studied molt-migration and hybridization patterns in Passerina buntings. Paul will be continuing this work at UMass and plans to deploy geolocators on Lazuli Buntings to track migration patterns, as well as perform acclimation experiments to investigate both the environmental cues and the underlying expression patterns that regulate molt in these birds. He is co-mentored by Nathan Senner and Maria.
Paul's website |
Cory Elowe, PhD (Postdoc)Cory joined the lab in January 2023 after completing his PhD at UMass Amherst in 2022 with Alex Gerson. Cory is a physiology extraordinaire that brings expertise in SO many areas -- from flying birds in wind tunnels to troubleshooting calcium uptake assays to transcriptomics. He received his B.A. from Bowdoin College, then worked for the Bureau of Land Management, the Nature Conservancy, and Bird Research Northwest. Cory next completed his Master's at California Polytechnic State University, where he received the Outstanding Thesis Award for his work on physiological flexibility in intertidal mussels. His research is now focused on seasonal acclimatization in songbirds, specifically physiological changes made in response to temperature and photoperiod. Cory does all the things in the Stager lab. He is also a very involved in the local birding community. Cory spends his free time with his wife, Emily, and their adorable dog, Teddy.
Cory's website |
Serina Suzuki (PhD Student)Serina is a graduate student in the Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Program. She completed her undergraduate work at Hokkaido University in Japan where she studied epigenetic mechanisms of avian song learning. She later worked with folks at Nagoya University studying breeding and movement patterns of Black-tailed Gulls on Kabushima Island. Serina is interested in migratory decision making and plans to make use of genomic and transcriptomic techniques in her dissertation work. She has been awarded an inaugural Quad Fellowship to support her graduate research.
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Jonathan Eckerson (Technician)Jonathan graduated from UMass in 2020 and has spent the last few years conducting bird research all over the place -- including California, Michigan, and Borneo! He has banded thousands of birds in this short time and joins the lab with oodles of experience. Together with Matthew, he is leading the charge on our new NSF grant exploring behavior and physiology of mixed-species winter flocks with the Shizuka Lab. In addition to being an expert bander, he's also constructing bird feeders, tinkering with electronics to build radio-frequency identification components, and waging squirrel wars.
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Matthew Eckerson (Technician)
Matthew graduated from UMass in 2023 and immediately flew to Alaska to perform research on shorebird ecology with the Senner lab. Next stop was the Michigan State Bird Observatory for fall migration. Together with Jonathan, he is leading the charge on our new NSF grant exploring behavior and physiology of mixed-species winter flocks with the Shizuka Lab. Matthew is also equal parts handyman, tinkerer, and squirrel combatant.
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Yousuf Al Attar (Undergraduate Researcher)Yousuf is a sophomore Biochemistry & Molecular Biology major in the Honors College. Yousuf joined the lab in Fall 2023. He is quickly perfecting his wet lab skills and recently started genotyping ~300 junco samples to quantify allelic variation across their range. But he's too darn efficient and rapidly demolishes every task before him so he already finished that project! He also worked at the Translation Center on campus and is fluent in Arabic. It's absolutely impossible to encounter Yousuf in the lab without a smile on his face.
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Julianna Applegate (Undergraduate Researcher)Julianna is a senior Vet and Animal Sciences student with a passion for animals. She joined the lab in Spring 2023 and collected data for our Purple Martin project, trying to understand the causes and consequences of a mass mortality event. She is now performing qPCR as a means to estimate mitochondrial abundance in muscle for different bird species. Julianna spends all of her time working with animals, including 4H Youth Programming with UMass Extension, TAing for the Boer Goat Management course, livestock judging, and interning at local vet clinics. Gosh, is she busy! Julianna plans to attend vet school and become a large animal vet after she graduates.
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Kay Denmead (Undergraduate Researcher)Kay was the first person to join the lab once our doors opened in Fall 2022! Kay is now a senior Biology major interested in all things birds and genetics. Together with Julianna, they helped spearhead data collection on our Purple Martin project, trying to understand the causes and consequences of a mass mortality event that occurred in Feb 2021. Now they are building their wet lab skills by working to genotype junco samples. In addition to their time in our lab, Kay keeps very busy working at the Center for Women and Community and singing in/directing UMass a cappella group Note-orious.
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Stephan Saint-Juste (Undergraduate Researcher)Stephan is a senior Biology major. He joined the lab in Spring 2023. Stephan is working to molecularly sex hundreds of samples from Hudsonian Godwit chicks in order to quantify sex-specific patterns in growth rate and survival. However, he is enthusiastic about trying his hand at many different projects within the lab and is eager to learn as many skills as possible. He also enjoys spending time outside learning about local natural history. Stephan is additionally involved in the UMass Haitian American Student Association, the UMass Student Governance Association, and a Kompa (Haitian ballroom) dance group.
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Sanya Thakur (Undergraduate Researcher)Sanya is a sophomore in Mathematics with a concentration in Statistics and Data Science. Sanya joined the lab as a Lee SIP Scholar in summer 2023 and wowed us with her programming and analytical skills! She analyzed the Purple Martin dataset that Kay and Julianna helped collect, which culminated in a poster presentation at UMass Summer REU Poster Symposium. She is now writing up these results for publication.
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Lab Alumni
Rebecca Ganley (Undergraduate Researcher)Becca graduated from the Biology Dept in Spring 2023. She joined the lab in her last semester at UMass -- and we treasured the time that we got with her! She spearheaded the lab's histological work by quantifying muscle properties of juncos acclimated to different temperatures. Becca now works as a Research Technician at Strand Therapeutics Inc. near her hometown.
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Suhani Manish Hingar (Undergraduate Researcher)Suhani joined the lab as a Freshman in Spring 2023. She worked on our feather project quantifying insulative properties of junco feathers. She also dabbled in molecular work. Suhani is now an undergraduate researcher in the UMass Sleep Monitoring Lab where she is pursuing her interests in neuroscience and exploring partnerships between biology and industry.
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Olivia Rizzo (Undergraduate Researcher)Olivia is a Junior double majoring in Vet and Animal Sciences and Biochemistry. She joined the lab as a Lee SIP Scholar in summer 2023 and got experience doing all sorts of lab work. Olivia presented this work at the UMass Summer REU Poster Symposium. She especially liked participating in the local Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) banding program. As a double major, Olivia's schedule is jam-packed with coursework and she's also an RA for one of the dorms on campus.
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Q Salako (Undergraduate Researcher)Q is a senior Biology major who took Intro Physiology with Maria in Spring '23. Q joined the lab in Fall 2023 to gain experience doing research. He is trying his hand at several things in the lab, including molecular work and histology. After he graduates, Q hopes to purse a Master's in Biology before applying to Medical School.
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