Current lab members
Molly Schumer is an assistant professor in Biology. She is interested in understanding the ways in which hybridization impacts genetic and evolutionary processes.
Stepfanie Aguillon is a Stanford Science Fellow and incoming postdoc in the lab interested in using hybrid zones and genomic tools to understand the speciation process. To learn more about her research and find copies of her publications, visit her website.
JJ Baczenas is our lab manager and leads many research projects in the lab. He is interested in using genomic techniques and next gen sequencing to investigate how ecological pressures affect genetic processes. JJ completed his undergraduate in marine biology from Hawai’i Pacific University in 2019. Before joining the lab, he worked for the University of Wisconsin researching a variety of pathogens, including SIV and SARS-CoV-2 using next gen sequencing.
Alex Donny is a lab technician who is excited about utilizing molecular techniques to tackle big questions in the field of genetics. She is especially interested in investigating the functional outcomes of observed genetic diversity.
Tris Dodge is a graduate student interested in how hybridization can enable rapid adaptation, particularly in response to human-driven environmental change. Tris wants to combine molecular data with field studies to understand how genome structure interacts with ecology to shape the functional consequences of hybridization.
Theresa Gunn is our fish room manager extraordinaire and contributes to many projects on swordtail reproduction, pigmentation, and life history.
Victoria Grant is a graduate student in the lab interested in investigating patterns of genetic diversity and observing its effect on wild populations’ risk for extinction. She plans to use these patterns to assist conservation efforts aimed at the preservation of species.
Quinn Langdon is an NSF Rules of Life postdoc in the lab who spent her graduate career thinking about yeast hybrids in beer, wine, cider, and the wild. She is interested in hybrids across all life, and the evolutionary pressures and genomic consequences of hybridization.
Ben Moran is a graduate student in the lab who is interested in how patterns of gene flow change across the spectrum from homogeneous populations to well-diverged species. He plans to connect the evolution of genomes under gene flow to mechanisms of reproductive isolation, and apply this knowledge to the conservation of genetic diversity in threatened populations.
Cheyenne Payne is a graduate student using genomic and proteomic tools to explore whether hybridization facilitates adaptation to environmental stress in parental species and hybrid populations.
Dan Powell is a postdoc in the lab interested in hybridization and sexual selection.
Gabe Preising is a graduate student interested in using bioinformatic and computational techniques to study how hybridization influences the evolution of behavior.
Ken Thompson is a Human Frontiers in Science Long-Term Fellow who is studying hybrid speciation and ecological mechanisms of hybrid incompatibility in plants. Ken is co-supervised by Moisés Expósito-Alonso at the Carnegie Institute for Science.
Undergraduate researchers
Sophia Haase Cox is an undergraduate student interested in aquatic organisms and learning about the techniques used to study and quantify behavior.
Ryan Kashanchi is an undergraduate studying Chemical Engineering, Biology, and Computer Science. His interests include biotechnology, population genetics, and pharmacogenomics.
Jose Ángel Machin Kairuz is an undergraduate researcher in the lab. He is majoring in Biology (Ecology & Evolution) and is currently on the pre-vet track. He is interested in how hybridization can impact ecosystem networks.
Alexa Pollock is currently an undergraduate sophomore majoring in Biology (Ecology and Evolution) and minoring in Physics. She works mostly as an assistant in the fish facilities and is part of the Stanford Pre-Vet Society. She loves the animal care side of research and is excited to continue learning about different aspects of hybridization, especially regarding the impact it has on overall fish health and viability.
Andreas Rice is an undergraduate at Cal Poly Humboldt and is interested in the fisheries of the Northeastern Pacific Ocean.
Lab Alumni
Shreya Banerjee was our lab manager from 2019-2022 and is now a graduate student at UC Davis.
Erden Tumurbaatar was life science technician in the lab from 2020-2021.
Dani Blakkan was our lab and fish room manager from 2019-2020.
Schumer lab 