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Biological Sciences Faculty Research
Explore faculty research and mentorship opportunities.
Research & Mentorship Contacts
| Faculty Member | Specialties | Office/Lab |
|---|---|---|
| Robin Altman Website | Email |
Cardiophysiology, blood-brain barrier, Alzheimer's disease | SQU126 |
| Jim Baxter Website | Email |
Ecology of plant communities, plant-mycorrhizal interactions, biodiversity-functioning, human impacts on ecosystems. | SQU306 |
| Ron Coleman Website | Email |
Dr. Coleman and his students study evolutionary ecology, typically with fishes. They do manipulative experiments in the lab and in the field, typically Costa Rica. Current undergraduate projects include mate choice in cichlid fishes, the Cichlid Fry Project and the Campus Tree Project | HMB119 |
| Clint Collins Website | Email |
My research program as a functional morphologist is to: 1) understand the interplay between structure, function, and behavioral systems in terrestrial vertebrates and 2) test how locomotion unites these relationships. I am looking for students to conduct experiments ranging from digitally dissecting vertebrates to understand morphological evolution, to measuring athletic performance in wild environments. |
HMB211F |
| Robert Crawford |
Tales from the microbe-host interface. | HMB211D |
| Timothy M Davidson Website | Email |
The Davidson Lab studies marine ecology, invasive species biology, and human impacts on the marine environment. Research opportunities are available for students to conduct lab experiments at Sacramento State, field studies on the California coast, and potential projects in the tropics (Hawaii, Florida, Caribbean). Please visit the lab webpage for details. | Office: SQU114 Research Space: SQU32 |
| Alan Ernst |
I oversee and run the cadaver lab at CSUS. I mentor a group of students every year to create cadaver prosections for use in advanced anatomy courses involving human cadavers. | Office: HMB211F Lab: HMB207 |
| Lani Gleason Website | Email |
The Gleason Lab studies how changes in gene sequence and expression drive patterns of individual and population differentiation in marine organisms. We are especially interested in how environmental conditions such as frequent heat stress in the rocky intertidal zone affects these patterns of differentiation. Research opportunities are available for students to conduct lab experiments at Sacramento State, and some projects may involve intertidal field work. Please visit my lab webpage for more details. | Office: SQU404 Lab: SQU20 |
| Enid T. Gonzalez-Orta Website | Email |
Microbial ecology of terrestrial and aquatic environments, with a focus on bacterial communities. I am primarily interested in teaching assistants to conduct research to support BIO 145: Diversity of Microorganisms. | SEE Office: SQU315 |
| Brett Holland Website | Email |
We study the evolutionary genetics of sexual selection (the outcome of mate choice and competition over mates). Specifically, we test hypotheses about the costs to females of sexual selection on males. | SQU120C |
| Jamie Kneitel Website | Email |
The Kneitel lab studies environmental variation in time and space (spatiotemporal heterogeneity) and its effects on the diversity and functioning of communities. This research is conducted in seasonal freshwater ecosystems, including vernal pools and rock pools. The research also encompasses food webs, species interactions, metacommunities, latitudinal gradients, and conservation issues like eutrophication, species invasions, and disturbance ecology. | Office: SQU404 Lab: SQU26 & 38 |
| Susanne Lindgren |
Bacterial pathogenesis | HMB211C |
| Kelly McDonald Website | Email |
The McDonald research group studies issues related to teaching and learning, including 1) the effectiveness of specific active learning strategies, assessment techniques, and metacognitive activities on student success in introductory biology courses, 2) the impact of undergraduate research and course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) and 3) the beliefs and attitudes of students preparing for careers in STEM teaching. | Office: HMB211C Research Space: SQU339 |
| Kimberly Mulligan Website | Email |
The Mulligan Lab studies the molecular underpinnings of neurodevelopmental disorders using the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model organism. Students conduct a range of experiments involving behavioral analysis and imaging of brains and neurons. For more specific details about our research, please visit the lab webpage. | Office: HMB211E Lab: SQU16B |
| Tom Peavy Website | Email |
Development of stem cell-based therapies for the healing of human chronic diabetic wounds. | SQU406 |
| Jimmy Pitzer |
The Entomology Research Program is focused on improving IPM strategies to control arthropod pests of veterinary and medical importance. Currently, undergraduates are investigating insecticide resistance in the common house fly, as well as methods for improving the use of their natural predator, the pteromalid pupal parasitoids. | Office: SQU120A Lab: SQU120B |
| Drew Reams Website | Email |
The “DReams team” is a microbial genetics lab studying the molecular and regulatory mechanisms of genome rearrangements, such as gene duplications and amplification. | Office: HMB120C Lab: HMB14C |
| Merrill Roseberry Website | Email |
The Vertebrate Museum and associated workshop support the Living Gallery, the display areas in 105 and various courses within the department. Possible opportunities include exhibit design and implementation, specimen production and maintenance, and educational outreach. To see past projects, please visit our Facebook. | SQU34 |
| Michael Wright Website | Email |
The Wright Lab is interested in understanding how the nervous system generates and coordinates rhythmic behaviors such as walking. Among the projects available, students will learn how to record from living neurons that underlie behaviors in the medicinal leech, H. species. The leech produces robust and reliable behaviors, facilitating studies on how nervous systems produce behaviors. For more specific details about the research projects available, please visit the lab webpage. | Office: SQU126 Lab: SQU40 |
| Clayton Visger Website | Email |
The Visger Lab studies the evolutionary role of polyploidy, or whole-genome duplication, and how it functions as a speciation mechanism. They investigate the impact of polyploidy in flowering plants using genomic and bioinformatics methods while drawing from the fields of physiology and ecology to place the findings into an evolutionary and ecological context. | Office: H211A Lab: SQU20 |