Evolutionary Ecology of Fishes Laboratory: Lab News

Updated: December 17, 2014

 

December 2014

Ron was awarded the Outstanding Teacher Award for the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics for 2014.

Farhat Bajjaliya finished his Masters of Science degree.

 

October 2014

The lab participated in the Expanding Your Horizons event with a workshop "Fun with Fishes" (Oct 11)

Ron talked on "Cichlid Research in the Evolutionary Ecology of Fishes Laboratory" to the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association (Oct 11)

Many students participated in the inaugral Provost's Student Research Showcase (Oct 28) (Sasha Watkins, Jesse Heckendorf, Lance Courtney, Shannon Waters...)

 

September 2014

New Graduate Student Tom Riley

Many lab undergraduate researchers presented posters in the NSM Undergraduate Poster Reception (e.g., Sasha Watkins, Jesse Heckendorf, Lance Courtney, Jasmine Hamilton, Natalie Flores...)

 

June-August 2014

Lance Courtnery did NSM SURE award

Jesse Heckendorf joined the lab for the STAR Mentor program

Ron participated in his first Tough Mudder race in Whistler, B.C. (June 21)

 

Much happened....

lots to be added here

 

May 2013

Shannon Waters gave a poster at the 15th Annual Bay Area Conservation Symposium at UC Davis (May 4)

Ron participated in the Dinner with a Scientist event in Sacramento

Ron talked on "Underwater Treasures of Costa Rica" to the Greater Cincinnati Aquarium Society (May 19)

Sam Borstein won second place at the statewide CSUS Student Research compettion in the Undergraduate Biological Sciences session

 

April 2013

Sam Borstein was awarded a Sigma Xi Grant-in-aid of Research.

Sam Borstein, Sadie St. Lawrence and Jasmine Hamilton gave oral presentations at the West Coast Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference at Point Loma, CA. Sam won first place in the Marine and Aquatic Science category.

Sam Borstein, Sadie St. Lawrence, Caitlin Brady, Nate Bell, and Esther Tracy presented posters at the "Water" OneWorld Year-End event (April 29) on campus.

Kasie Barnes successfully passed her MS advancement.

Ron talked at the PCCA "On Aggression"

 

March 2013

Steve Brumbaugh successfully passed his MS advancement.

Sam Borstein and Sadie St. Lawrence participated in the CSUS Student Research Competition. Sam was selected to go to the statewide competition in May.

 

February 2013

Farhat Bajjaliya successfully passed his MS advancement.

Ron talked at the Durham Regional fish club and was awarded the "Scientist Award" by the Canadian Organization of Aquarium Clubs.

 

January 2013

Ron, Esther Tracy, Christine Capelle, and Sam Borstein did field work in Costa Rica.

Sam Borstein gave a poster at the annual SICB conference in San Francisco

December 2012

Shannon Waters was awarded a Sigma Xi Grant in Aide of Research.

November 2012

Ron was re-elected to the ACA Board of Trustees (BOT) for another 2 year term. .

Karen Converse successfully finished her thesis.

Shannon Waters advanced to candidacy.

Ron participated in the Dinner With a Scientist events in Sacramento and in Stockton.

October 2012

Ron talked at the Science in the River City event.

September 2012

Ron talked in Utah.

MANY students from the lab presented posters at the NSM Undergraduate Research Reception. It was truly impressive!

August 2012

Jessica Alexander, Beth Parvis and Erin Strange joined the lab as MS students

Tracy Audisio had her first paper published. She is co-author on the description of the new spider family Trogoraptoridae. Tracy is now an MS Student at SF State and the California Academy of Sciences. In her words, "Charles, Joel and I started working on the publication when I was an undergraduate and I examined many of the specimens in the Evolutionary Ecology of Fishes Lab". Here is a link to the publication: http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/3547/an-extraordinary-new-family-of-spiders-from-caves-in

Gena Lasko finished her thesis

Ron gave a talk at the Silicon Valley Aquarium Society "Adventures in Costa Rica"

July 2012

Sam Borstein gave a talk " " at the American Cichlid Association

Sam Borstein has been working with Matt McGee in Peter Wainwright's lab at UC Davis study fish morphology

Jasmine Hamilton presented a poster at the McNair Scholars conference in Buffalo

Ron, Shannon, Sam and Esther made another tirp to the Salton Sea to collect tilapia

June 2012

Several undergraduates (Jasmine Hamilton, Eliza Hanson, Esther Tracy, and Sadie St. Lawrence) have started summer research projects

Jasmine Hamilton presented a talk at the McNair Scholars conference in Atlanta

Nathan Bell started his 7 week research experience in Costa Rica

May 2012

Ron once again coached the CSUS Student Research Competition team at the statewide event in Long Beach

Jasmine Hamilton presented at the CSUS Student Research Competition

Nathan Bell gave an oral presentation at the West Coast Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference in Los Angeles

Ron was awarded a UEI Campus Grant for student research

Shannon and Ron were awarded a research grant from the Desert Legacy Fund

Ron and Kasier were awarded a Goethe research grant to study California lamprey

February 2012

Ron gave a STEM center talk "Underwater Treasures of Costa Rica"

Jasmine Hamilton presented at the ERN conference

Jasmine Hamilton became a CSU-LSAMP scholar

Gena Lasko was awarded a COAST fellowship

January 2012

Ron, Alina, Christine and Alex (AJ) had a successful trip to Costa Rica

Shannon and Ron presented a poster on her work in the Salton Sea at the CSU Board of Governors meeting in Long Beach

Lab alum Nick Macias started MS program at Georgia Southern University

October 2011

The lab once again presented Expanding Your Horizon's workshop entitle "Fun with Fishes"

September 2011

NSM undergraduate research symposium presentations by Sam Borstein, Nate and Nate, Jasmine Hamilton,..

Angela De Palma starts MSc program at Michigan State University.

August 2011

Shannon Waters and Ron make second expedition to Salton Sea to collect tilapia

Summer research by Sam Borstein (SURE), Nathan Bell and Nate Shanklin

May 2011

Shannon Waters and Ron make first expedition to Salton Sea to collect tilapia

April 2011

Angela De Palma got accepted in the MSc program at Michigan State University into the lab of Dr.Kendra Cheruvelil

Sam Borstein was awarded a SURE fellowship for this coming summer

Jasmine Hamilton was awarded a Martha West Biology Scholarship.

March 2011

Ron and Sam B. spoke at the San Francisco Aquarium Society

Ron spoke at the Louisville Tropical Fish Association

Ron gave the keynote address at the Dinner With a Scientist event held at UC Merced

Tracy Audisio has been accepted into the MSc program at SFSU. She will be working with Dr. Charles Griswold of the California Academy of Sciences.

January 2011

Ron and AJ Southwell participated in the COAST poster presentation session at the Chancellor's office

Ron, Sam B. along with Christine Capelle and Alina Davis completed field work in Costa Rica.

December 2010

Dan Worth successfully defended his Masters thesis and turned it in.

October 2010

The Evolutionary Ecology of Fishes Lab had a great showing at the NSM Undergraduate Research Symposium, presenting 6 posters. The following students associated with the lab presented their research: Sam Borstein, Angela Dow, Nick Macias, Tracy Audisio, Sarah Van Ruiten and Jasmine Hamilton.

The paper by Rob Grasso, Carlos Davidson and Ron Coleman appeared in Copeia.

Ameer Thompson, lab alumnus, successfully defended his PhD thesis at Cornell Medical School in New York on October 4. Congratuations to the new Dr. Ameer Thompson!

September 2010

Ron gave a talk at the Circle City Aquarium Club in Indianapolis

Sam Borstein gave a talk at the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association

August 2010

Two new graduate students joined the lab: Shannon Waters and Farhat Bajjaliya. Shannon is looking to work on Salton Sea issues (pupfish and/or tilapia). Farhat works on salmon. Nick Macias joined the lab. Nick is doing undergraduate research on crayfish.

July 2010

Sam Borstein was awarded a Guy Jordan research grant from the American Cichlid Association for his work on chromatophore development in cichlids.

Ron and Sarah had a successful trip to Costa Rica. They were joined there by Michelle Kleine from College of the Atlantic. Ron was a mentor in the OTS NSF REU program and Michelle was his REU mentee. Sarah was Ron's assistant and successfully collected all the data for her SURE project.

Jasmine Hamilton worked on her SURE award breeding kribensis

June 2010

Karen Converse has joined the lab. Karen works on red foxes.

May 2010

Ron was informed that he will be promoted to Associate Professor as of the Fall semester.

Ron participated in the CSUS Teaching Institute

Sarah van Ruiten was awarded the Marda West Scholar award. She was also awarded the John and Kathryn Von Saltza Memorial Scholarship.

Tracy Audisio was awarded a Delisle Family Scholarship.

Lesley Hamamoto turned in her final thesis and is done her Masters.

Bianka Bommarito successfully defended her Masters thesis.

Ron participated in the Science Mini-Institute at Hiram Johnson High School, giving a talk to high school teachers about natural and sexual selection.

Jasmine Hamilton and Sarah van Ruiten were awarded NSM SURE awards to do research in the lab this coming summer.

April 2010

Tracy Audisio was selected to participate in the prestigious California Academy of Sciences summer Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU).

Ron participated in the Science Mini-Institute at Hiram Johnson High School, giving a talk to high school teachers about natural and sexual selection.

March 2010

Rob Grasso, Ron Coleman and Carlos Davidson had a paper accepted in Copeia. The paper is based on Rob's MS thesis research.

Ron and Kasie both participated in the Dinner with a Scientist Program held March 10 at University of the Pacific and then again on March 25 at the University of California, Merced. The kids always really like trying out the underwater camera and Kasie's lamprey was a big hit!

Ron participated in the Science Mini-Institute at Hiram Johnson High School, giving a talk to high school teachers on Fish Eggs, Adapation and Natural Selection.

Ron gave a talk at the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association.

The 24th Annual CSUS Student Research Competition was held March 6th on campus. Ron is the team coach. Bianca Davis from Biology won this year and she and a team of nine others will be traveling to San Jose in late April to represent CSUS at the CSU systemwide competition.

Ron gave at talk at UC Davis to the Animal Behavior Group on March 5.

Tracy Audisio got accepted into the California Academy of Sciences Summer Systematics Institute REU for Summer 2010.

Ron attended the WRPI conference held March 3 at Sac State (he was a member of the local organizing committee).

February 2010

Ron gave at talk at CSU Chico on Feb 26.

Ron gave a couple of talks at the Winnipeg Aquarium Society.

Sam Borstein gave a talk "The Road to Gandoca" about his experiences in the fish hobby as well as his recent research expedition to Costa Rica, at the Sacramento Aquarium Society on Feb 6.

Anthony and Ron had a paper published: Barley, A.J., Coleman, R.M. (2010). Habitat structure directly affects aggression in convict cichlids Archocentrus nigrofasciatus. Current Zoology 56:52-56.

January 2010

Ron, Sam B., Christine, David Mellor and Camille Mellor completed a successful expedition to Costa Rica.

At La Selva, Ron gave talks to students from Tufts University as well as another talk to students from Birmingham Southern University.

October 2009

Nikki Constantinedes presented her research poster at the NSM Undergraduate Research Reception.

Ron, Bianka and Kasie took part in the Expanding Your Horizons conference. They conducted two workshops entitled "Fun with Fishes".

August 2009

Several people recently joined the lab. Steve Brumbaugh, Mike Cane, AJ Southwell and Kasie Barnes joined the lab as new Masters students. Nikki Constantinedes will be continuing her undergraduate research. Sam Borstein and Rich Bireley are starting research projects in the lab.

Ron gave an invited talk entitled "Cooperation and Conflict in a Biparental Cichlid Fish" in a symposium entitled "The Evolution of Cooperation: Theoretical and Experimental Approaches". The Symposium was part of the 90th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Division of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) held in August in San Francisco.

Anthony Barley is off to University of Kansas to start his PhD.

July 2009

Greg Brown headed to Brazil to scope out research possibilities.

Preeti Talwal (just graduated from Mira Loma High School, heading to UC Berkeley this fall) joined the lab for the summer.

Ron and Anna had a successful trip to Costa Rica. Ron was there to mentor two NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) students: Kelly Klingler and Eduardo Hazera. Anna was Ron's assistant.

June 2009

Ron gave a talk at the Great Salt Lake Aquarium society (June 11). Ron represented Sac State at the WRPI conferernce in Long Beach (June 9)..

Anna Doty (undergrad at UC Berkeley) joined the lab for the summer.

May 2009

Anthony Barley competed in the CSU Student Research Competition held at CSU Los Angeles. Anthony won 2nd place in the Undegraduate Biological and Agricultural Sciences Session (Session 3).

April 2009

Lesley Hamamoto successfully defended her Masters thesis.

March 2009

Anthony Barley won first place in the CSUS Student Research Competition, held March 7..

November 2008

Robyn Bilski successfully defended her Masters thesis.

September 2008

Luciana successfully defended her Masters thesis. She, Gabriel and Emma flew back to Argentina.

August 2008

Ron was awarded tenure.

On August 12, Ron officially answered his 5000th question about fishes on the AllExperts website.

June 2008

Ron presented a paper at the Ecological and Evolutionary Ethology of Fishes conference (June 29, Boston, MA) entitled "Surviving the Storms: Egg size and reproductive strategies in riverine tropical cichlids", coauthored with Samantha Hilber (U. Florida) and Allison Berke (MIT).

At the same conference, James and Ron had a poster "Parental ecology of the plainfin midshipman, Porichthys notatus" and Anthony Barley and Ron had a poster "Habitat structure directly affects aggression in the convict cichlid, Archocentrus nigrofasciatus".

April 2008

Robyn Bilski gave a presentation on her thesis work on salmon spawning habitat at the California-Nevada sectional meeting of the American Fisheries Society (April 5, Lake Tahoe) and was awarded Second Place for Best Student Presentation.

March 2008

Ron participated in two "Dinner with a Scientist" events this month. The program brings 5th through 10th graders together with scientists to interest you people in careers in science. The first was March 11 at the Stockton Grand Hotel and the second was at UC Merced. The latter was written up in the Saturday March 22 issue of the Merced SunStar including a photo of Ron explaining to a student how to use an underwater camera.

James Phillips competed in the CSUS Student Research Competition on March 15 and was one of the ten Sac State students selected to go on to the statewide competition being held at CSU East Bay in May.

Erika Holland has accepted an offer to do her PhD at UC Davis with Dr. Inge Werner.

February 2008

Ron was awarded a University Enterprises Incorporated grant for his Costa Rican fieldwork.

January 2008

The NSF awarded a Research Network grant to La Selva. In this grant, Ron is the "fish person".

Ron, Selina Cole, Christine Capelle and Samantha Hilber travelled to Costa Rica to continue work on the riverine cichlids.

November 2007

James Philllips successfully defended his Masters thesis "Reproductive Ecology of the plainfin midshipman, Porichthys notatus" on November 28. James completed his thesis in under two years and is the first in the lab to do so.

Beth Glidewell presented a poster of her Honors thesis "Sexual dimorphism in the Convict Cichlid" and was one of three winners in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology section at the 108th Annual Meeting and Student Research Compettion of Sigma Xi, Orlando, Florida, November 1-4.

Ron attended the 108th Annual Meeting and Student Research Compettion of Sigma Xi, Orlando, Florida, November 1-4 as the Sacramento State representative.

Ron attended the ABRCMS meeting in Austin, Texas as part of the Sac State team.

October 2007

Ron gave a talk about his research at Rutgers University, in New Jersey.

Danielle Delaporte successfully defended her Masters thesis "Effects of Predator Size and Lag Time between Attacks on Parental Care by Female Archocentrus nigrofasciatus" .

September 2007

Robyn, Erika and James all presented at the American Fisheries Society conference held in San Francisco.

August 2007

Stephen Stringer turned in his thesis and is done. He is starting a new job with HDR/SWRI consulting.

July 2007

Ron was the Show Chair of the American Cichlid Association annual convention, held in Sacramento. This was the first time the convention was held on the west coast since 1995. The convention was a great success. Several members of the lab helped setup some of the 300+ fish tanks at the start of the convention. Ron also spoke at the conference.

Bianka Bommarito was awarded a Guy Jordan research grant from the American Cichlid Association.

May 2007

Ron spoke at the Greater Chicago Cichlid Association "Cichlid Classic"

Ron was invited to and attended the "Changing Forests" workshop held at La Selva Biological Station, in Costa Rica.

April 2007

Ron chaired the American River Watershed Conference held April 12-13, 2007 at Sacramento State. The event brought hundreds of politicians, policy makers, planners, scientists and agency folks to campus. Erika and Robyn presented oral papers at the conference.

March 2007

Ron spoke at the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association (San Jose, CA) and at the Greater Portland Aquarium Society (GPASI).

February 2007

Beth, Kim and Erika competed in the CSUS Student Research Competition.

Ron spoke at the California Organization for Aquatic Show Tropicals (COAST) in Orange County.

January 2007

Ron completed another successful field season in Costa Rica, with Samantha Hilber as his field assistant. Meanwhile, Luli explored the waters of northern Argentina.

Geoff Teigen and Dan Worth joined the lab and Bianka has returned to finish her thesis. Geoff will be working on gene flow and conservation issues of frogs in Peru, while Dan will be working with striped bass predation on juvenile salmonids here in the Delta.

December 2006

Laura Cholodenko successfully passed her oral thesis defense on Friday, December 1 and Robyn Bilski successfully passed her Advancement to Candidacy.

November 2006

Lynn Drennan successfully passed her oral thesis defense on Friday, November 17, 2006. Later that day, Erika Holland successfully passed her Advancement to Candidacy.

Richard Aguirre and Carlos Montanez presented their posters at the 2006 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) held Nov 8-11, in Anaheim, California.

The lab acquired a pair of Paratilapia polleni "large spot", a rare cichlid from Madagascar. They must like their new home because the female already laid eggs. Unfortunately, as a safety precaution, the male and female were separated at the time by a solid acrylic barrier, so none of the eggs were fertilized. They are the most unusual cichlid eggs -- they do not stick to the substrate, but rather are attached to each other by a string-like filament. Very cool stuff!

October 2006

Liz Hanson (from Mira Loma high school) joined the lab to work on testing the swimming ability of very young fishes.

September 2006

Paul Clerkin joined the lab to work on an undergraduate research project. He is working on semelcavous vs. iterocavous mouthbrooding cichlids.

Mark Dendy is now doing his Masters degree through the University of Maryland but will be conducting his out here on the West Coast with some supervision provided by Ron Coleman.

Both Richard Aguirre and Carlos Montanez have had their abstracts accepted to present as posters at the 2006 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) to be held Nov 8-11, in Anaheim, California.

Kim Nelson has joined the lab to do her undergraduate Honors thesis. She will be working on the biochemistry of cichlid eggs.

Unfortunately, Bianka Bommarito has decided not to continue pursuing her Masters degree at this time.

June 2006

Two more undergraduates, Richard Aguirre and Carlos Montanez, have joined the lab as part of the SEE summer research program.

Ron, Luli and Samantha participated in the Ecological and Evolutionary Ethology of Fishes (EEEF) 2006 conference at Aliso Viejo, CA. Ron presented a talk by Nina Kogut and himself (her Master's thesis work) and Samantha presented her undergraduate Honor's thesis work.

May 2006

Sac State sent a team of two students to the recent 20th Annual CSU Student Research Competition, held May 5 and 6th, at CSU Channel Islands. Our two competitors were Elaine Manzanilla and Andro Rios.  Andro won first place in the Undergraduate Biological and Agricultural Sciences Session with his talk "The Power of the Bergman Cyclization: Design and Synthesis of Light-Activated Pro-Drugs".  This is the second time in three years that Sac State has won the Biological Sciences Undergraduate session.  The team was coached by Ron.

April 2006

Beth Glidewell has joined the lab to do her undergraduate Honor's thesis project this summer and next year.

March 2006

Ron was invited as one of a handful of scientists to participate in the Modesto "Dinner with a Scientist" program. It was great. This program is designed to introduce middle schoolers to the possibility of careers in Math, Science and Engineering.

February 2006

Two undergraduates joined us doing "199's": Courtney Ray and Mark Dendy. Courtney is interested in cichlid behavior.  She is a recent transfer student from junior college and will likely be with us for awhile. Mark Dendy will be working on a sculpin project in the field.  Mark is a graduating senior who teaches at a small, local high school -- in fact, he IS the science department, teaching everything from physics to biology.

January 2006

Ron and Samantha did field work in Costa Rica for over three weeks.

Rob presented at the Declining Amphibian Task Force conference in Arcata.

Erika presented at the CSUPERB conference in San Jose.

Three new graduate students joined the lab: Robyn Billski, James Phillips and Luciana Ramirez.

Lesley's research award was written up in the December 2005 issue of the Buntbarsche Bulletin (Journal of the American Cichlid Association).

December 2005

Rob Grasso successfully defended his thesis and both Lynn Drennan and Stephen Stringer successfully passed their advancement to candidacy exams.

November 2005

Samantha was awarded the Clair A. Hill Water Agency Award for Excellence from the Carmichael Water District for her outstanding record as an undergraduate and for her passion for water-related research. This was written up in the Association of California Water Agencies Newsletter, vol 33, No. 24.

Samantha presented her Honors thesis research in the student competition at the annual meeting of Sigma Xi, in Seattle, Washington, November 4. Her poster paper was entitled "Egg Size Through Consecutive Spawnings in the Convict Cichlid"

October 2005

Lynn Drennan was awarded the Mark Tomasello Grant from the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association.

August 2005

Lesley was awarded a research grant from the Guy Jordan Fund of the American Cichlid Association.

Bianka Bommarito, Patrick Crain and Erica Holland joined the lab for Masters degrees. Elif Fehm-Sullivan and Shelly Amrhein have withdrawn from the lab. DJ Eichenberger has decided to pursue her Masters on mammals with Dr. Lancaster.

Ron visited British Columbia where he personally saw Enos Lake sticklebacks.

July 2005

Samantha, Bianka and Ron went to the annual American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists meeting in Tampa, Florida. All three presented oral papers. In addition, Ron presented a poster by Rob Grasso, Ron and Carlos Davidson.

May 2005

Nina Kogut graduated with her Master's degree and Ameer Thompson and Bianka Bommarito graduated with their Bachelor of Science degrees. Congratulations to all of them!

Ameer Thompson was one of two NSM undergraduates selected to give speeches at convocation -- Ameer's speech was fabulous!

Nina Kogut successfully defended her Master's thesis and turned it in. She is now done! Nina will continue with her position with the California Department of Fish and Game.

Lynn Drennan and Laura Cholodenko each won two awards at the recent Department end-of-year pizza party. Lynn won an Outstanding Teaching Assistant award and a Biological Conservation scholarship. Laura won a Biological Conservation scholarship and the Jack and Bernice Newell Scholarship from the Sacramento Safari Club.

April 2005

Rob Grasso shared second place in the Biological Sciences Graduate Student session at the CSU systemwide Student Research Competition held at CSUS on April 29-30. Bianka Bommarito and Samantha Hilber both competed in the Undergraduate Biological & Agricultural Sciences session.

Laura Cholodenko passed her Advancement to Candidacy exam.

Guthrum Purdin has been accepted into the Vet program at UC Davis and will be starting there in the fall.

Rob Grasso passed his Advancement to Candidacy exam.

March 2005

Lesley Hamamoto was awarded a $500 research grant from the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association, which was presented at their meeting in San Jose on March 12.

A story on Ron's community service and the Cichlid Egg Project appeared in the CSUS Bulletin, Vol. 11, Number 22, entitled "Coleman's community service helps humans, fish."

Rob Grasso, Bianka Bommarito and Samantha Hilber competed in the CSUS Student Research competition (March 5). Rob was co-winner (along with Rebecca Money of Engineering). Rob, Bianka and Samantha were all selected to go on to the systemwide competition to be held at CSUS on April 29-30.

Gena Lasko has joined the lab for her Masters degree.

February 2005

Samantha Hilber was awarded a Faculty Merit Scholarship, one of only three given to undergraduates at CSUS.

The proposal Ron and DJ submitted to the Water Forum was funded.

Guthrum Purdin has joined the lab for his Masters degree.

Rob Grasso was awarded a Valentine Reserve research grant.

January 2005

Ron, Sam, Elif, Brandon, Shelly and Luciana (Luli) Ramirez survived a trip to Costa Rica.

Rob presented a poster at the Declining Amphibian Task Force meetings held at ???

Laura presented a poster at the Bay Area Conservation conference held at Stanford.

December 2004

Both Martha and Lissa Thompson turned in their Master's theses; they are now done!

Martha Volkoff successfully defended her Master's thesis.

November 2004

Teresa Kirkpatrick presented a poster at the AGEP conference at UCSF.

October 2004

Lissa Thompson passed her oral thesis defense for her MS degree.

Teresa Kirkpatrick was selected for the McNair Scholar program.

September 2004

Nina Kogut passed her Advancement to candidacy exam.

Stephen Stringer has joined the lab as an incoming graduate student. Stephen was an undergraduate at CSUS and is very interested in fisheries research. He currently works at an environmental consulting firm. His research will have to do with fish and/or fisheries in the Lower American River.

Courtney Dietz, former member of the lab, started a Masters program at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

August 2004

Lynn Drennan was awarded a $900 research grant from the American Cichlid Association.

Allison Berke is off to the Massechusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to begin her undergraduate degree.

Camelia Bianchi, former member of the lab, started a Master of Environmental Science degree at Washington State University (Vancouver campus). Her supervisor is Brian Tissot.

July 2004

Allison Berke, a recent graduate of Mira Loma High School, joined the lab for the summer. She participated in several projects including egg hatching experiments as well as analysis of water temperature data from the Rio Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica.

Madeline Majer headed off to Dental School at the University of Michigan.

Martha Volkoff flew to Australia to present her work on identifying juvenile salmon using their otoliths at the Salmonid Otolith Conference.

Ron gave a public lecture at the Sacramento Aquarium Society.

June 2004

Ameer Thompson went out east to New York University to do a summer internship on neural physiology.

Ron and Robin went to the Animal Behavior Conference in Oaxaca. Ameer joined us from New York (what a jet-setter!). Ameer and Ron presented separate oral papers.

Allison Berke joined the lab for the summer working on various projects having to do with cichlid eggs and temperature.

Sam started her Honors work looking at egg size variation through the spawning sequence using convict cichlids.

Rob spent the month in the field working with Yosemite toads at SNARL (Sierra Nevada Alpine Research Lab?).

Laura began her field work on amphibians in northern California.

Bianka finished up her project on growth in juvenile mouthbrooders and found some fascinating patterns.

Ron gave a public lecture at the San Francisco Aquarium Society.

 

May 2004

DJ Eichenberger graduated from CSUS with a B.S. in Biological Sciences. She graduated Magna Cum Laude.

Ron spoke at CSU Hayward on his research on egg size as well as an overview of the lab.

Autum Bahlman and Mike Cain visited La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica to scout out future Masters projects.

DJ Eichenberger presented her Honor's thesis work at the West Coast Undergraduate Biological Sciences Conference at Point Loma University in San Diego.

Ameer Thompson won first place in Session 18 (Biological and Agricultural Sciences -- Undergraduate) at the CSU Student Research Competition held at CSU Northridge. There were 19 different sessions covering just about every academic discipline you could think of. The CSUS team of seven students walked away with 3 firsts and a second place. They did not award overall prizes, just first and second place in each of the 19 sessions. Next year, the competition is being held here at CSUS!

Danelle Delaporte was accepted into the teaching credential program.

April 2004

Ron gave a talk at the Silicon Valley Aquarium Society.

Madeline Majer was accepted into several Dental Schools and has decided to go to University of Michigan next fall to pursue her DDS degree.

March 2004

Ameer Thompson won the CSUS Student Research Competition.

January 2004

Rochelle (Shelly) Amrhein joined the lab as a Masters student.

Ron, Maddy, Autumn and Jennifer spent three weeks in the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica studying cichlid reproductive biology. They continued the long-term studies of the cichlids of the Rio Puerto Viejo at the La Selva Biological Station, but they also visited dozens of other sites in eastern Costa Rica, between Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui and Cahuita on the coast. .

December 2003

Martha Volkoff had her abstract accepted for a poster presentation at 3rd International Symposium on Ototlith Research and Application, to be held 11-16 July in Townsville, Queensland, Australia.

Martha Volkoff passed her Advancement to Candidacy Examination, December 10.

November 2003

Ameer Thompson presented a poster at the Sigma Xi national conference in Los Angeles. His poster was extremely well-received and was given a rating of "Superior" by the judges. Listed in CSUS Bulletin, Jan 26, 2004 (volume 10, number 16)

Lissa Thompson passed her Advancement to Candidacy Examination, November 11.

Alison Galvani (former student), published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with coauthor Montgomery Slatkin, on smallpox. The paper was written about in an article on vaccination and immunology in the Economist [vol 369, number 8351, pp. 77-78].

Ron presented at the Ohio Cichlid Extravaganza and at the Canadian Cichlid Association in Winnipeg.

October 2003

Ameer Thompson had his abstract accepted for the Sigma Xi conference in Los Angeles in November and received some funding from Sac State to attend the conference.

The lab was open for Homecoming.

September 2003

Bianka Bommarito joined the lab for a 199 project on cichlids.

August 2003

Elif Akaaboune, Laura Cholodenko, Lynn Drennan and Rob Grasso joined the lab as Master's students.

Ron presented at the Southern California Cichlid Association in Los Angeles.

July 2003

Ron (and Robin) and Ameer travelled to Manaus, Brazil for the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists annual meeting. They had a great time. Ron presented an oral paper and Ameer presented a poster.

May 2003

Lesley Hamamoto and Martha Volkoff joined the lab as Masters students. DJ Eichenberger joined the lab for her Undergraduate Honors project.

March 2003

Lissa Thompson was awarded a research grant from the Pacific Coast Cichlid Association for her work on mouthbrooding cichlids. .

Danielle Delaporte joined the lab as a Masters student.

February 2003

Ron published the following paper:

Galvani A.P., Coleman, R.M. and N.M. Ferguson (2003) The maintenance of sex in parasites.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 270:19-28.

January 2003

Ron, Erin and Courtney spent three weeks in the lowland rainforest of Costa Rica, studying cichlids and tropical biology. Most of the research was done in the Rio Puerto Viejo, at the La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica, although they also visited a number of other local rivers.

December 2002

"Fish parenting", a story on Ron Coleman's cichlid research by Dierdre Fitzpatrick, appeared on KCRA (Channel 3) 5pm News, December 3.

November 2002

The Folsom Telegraph ran a cover story on Ron's Fisheries Biology class and their survey of Willow Creek. (November 20)

Ameer Thompson was made a McNair Scholar, a prestigious award.

September 2002

Ameer Thompson joins the lab as an undergraduate researcher. Ameer and Lissa begin experiment on Eyespots, following up on the success of a pilot experiment Ron did with 5 excellent STP students in August. .

July 2002

Ron presented a paper titled "Egg Size of Cichlid Fishes" at the 10th meeting of the International Society of Behavioral Ecologists, in Montreal, Canada. As usual, the meetings were fascinating and invigorating, displaying the incredible diversity of research in Behavioral and Evolutionary Ecological research from around the world.

June 2002

After months of work, the remodelled fish room is nearly ready to go!

May 2002

Bernie Lau joined the lab. Bernie will be working on the effects of environmental estrogens on fishes.

January 2002

Melissa Thompson and Nina Kogut have joined the lab to pursue their MSc research. Melissa will likely be working on the reproductive biology of Sacramento perch (the native sunfish in California) while Nina will be working on diet choice in white sturgeon.

Ron, Camelia and Adriana made a successful two-week trip to the La Selva Biological Station in the northeastern lowlands of Costa Rica. As part of Ron's ongoing research at La Selva, we were interested in knowing if the cichlid fishes breed at the start of the "dry" season -- they do!

 

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