News archive
Spring/Summer 2023
Spring/Summer 2023
- Current undergrad Mataeus Funderburk was accepted into an REU program in Naomi Pierce's lab at Harvard University, where he spent this past summer. Congrats, Mataeus!
- Former undergrad Daisy Ryan completed her M.S. at Appalachian State University, and is now a GIS Technician at Bolton and Menk, Inc. in Raleigh. We are excited that Daisy will be nearby again!
- Sophie Meng completed her undergrad studies this past spring and began a position as Plant Conservation Technician at the North Carolina Botanical Garden! Nice work, Sophie!!!
- Former undergrad Emma Wilson's work on seagrass has been published through NC State's Extension website. Well done, Emma!!!
- Under the leadership of Susana Wadgymar's lab, we are gearing up to begin seed collections across the range of the partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) for our new Partridge Peaple project!
- Some of our former undergrads/post-bacs have recently begun or will begin graduate studies soon! Congrats to all!!!
- Mia Wiegmann will begin medical school at University of North Carolina's School of Medicine this fall.
- Emily Powell will begin a Ph.D. program in Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics at the University of Georgia this fall.
- Natalie Gold began a M.S. in the Dept. of Crop and Soil Sciences at NCSU this past January.
- Magdalene Lo will begin a M.S. with Dena Grossenbacher at California Polytechnic State University this fall.
- Thanks to Kaleb's awesome field coordination, our GLORIA Great Basin field surveys went smoothly this year, and the wildflowers put on quite a show. We especially enjoyed welcoming the inaugural cohort of Peak Opportunity Fellows to participate in surveys in the White Mountains.
- Ph.D. student Kaleb Goff received a Global Change Fellowship from the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center and a White Mountain Research Center Mini-grant. Way to go, Kaleb!!!
- Seema spent the spring semester setting up common gardens in California and Oregon near the northern edge, center and southern range edge of the scarlet monkeyflower for the PERSIST project. Thanks to lots of help from our collaborators, we put >14,000 seedlings into the ground, and our collaborators have been busy this summer collecting data on physiology and phenology in these gardens!
- With Amy Angert, we received an NSF LTREB award to continue collecting long-term demographic data in 21 populations across the geographic range of the scarlet monkeyflower. We will use these data to understand population persistence and adaptation under climate change.
- Seema had super fun seminar visits to the Department of Plant Biology at the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Department of Biology at Utah State University in April. Many thanks to Laura Leventhal and Cathy Rushworth for hosting!
- Kaleb gave a fabulous virtual talk through the White Mountain Research Center's lecture series. You can check out a recording of his talk here!
- In January, we welcomed MC Moazed as a remote field technician leading field efforts for the PERSIST project! We are so thankful to have MC on board!
- Seema enjoyed sharing our research about species ranges in a changing world with the New Hope Audubon Society at their monthly meeting at the North Carolina Botanical Garden in December.
- Kaleb was accepted into the KIETS Climate Leaders Program. Through this program, Kaleb and Seema will work with Meagan Oldfather at the North Central Climate Adaptation Science Center to study the long-term effects of climate change on alpine plant communities in California and Nevada. Congrats, Kaleb!
- Seema had a blast during an in-person visit to the Department of Biology at Wake Forest University. Thanks so much to Nick Kortessis for hosting!
- Kaleb, along with other PMB and Applied Ecology graduate students, led our lab's exhibit at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences Darwin Day again this year. We enjoyed another beautiful day teaching kids about how plant populations cope with climate change by moving or evolving.
- Emma Vtipilthorpe began a position as Research Associate at Invaio Sciences. Congratulations, Emma!!!
- Undergrad Mataeus Funderburk joined the lab in Fall 2022. Welcome, Mataeus!
- With lead PI Jill Anderson and co-PIs Megan DeMarche, Susana Wadgymar, Emily Josephs, and Jenny Cruse-Sanders, we received a National Science Foundation Organismal Response to Climate Change grant to integrate evolutionary and migratory potential of Chamaecrista fasciculata into forecasts of range-wide population dynamics under climate change. We are recruiting a graduate student to work on this NSF-funded project.
- New meta-analysis led by Matt Sasaki and Brian Cheng, with several co-authors from the Research Coordinated Network for Evolution in Changing Seas, is out in Nature Climate Change.
- New paper co-led by former lab manager Aeran Coughlin and former post-doc Rachel Wooliver is out in Ecology and Evolution.
- Seema had a fantastic scouting trip for PERSIST. It was great to meet with new collaborators and check out potential sites for our scarlet monkeyflower common gardens!
- Kaleb had a fun and successful field season collecting functional trait data on alpine plants with UC Davis undergrad Malia Reiss and Seema! Kaleb also crushed his first field season as Gloria Great Basin field coordinator, and successfully completed surveys in the White Mountains and the Carson Range!
- New review led by Susana Wadgymar and Jill Anderson, with co-authors Megan DeMarche and Emily Josephs, is out in Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics.
- Kaleb received graduate student research awards from the Botanical Society of America, California Native Plant Society, Northern California Botanists, and the White Mountain Research Center for a total of $4500 for conducting field research for his dissertation work in the alpine. Congrats, Kaleb!
- Our review paper on the ability of species distribution models to predict population parameters, led by Julie Lee-Law with co-authors Jenny McCune and Sam Pironon, won runner-up for Ecography's E4 award. Check out the video abstract here!
- Seema had a blast during an in-person visit to the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Georgia, along with a virtual visit to the University of Toronto Mississauga's Biology Department. Thanks so much to the UGA Plant Biology and UTM graduate students for hosting!
- Many congrats to Kaleb on receiving an Honorable Mention on his NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program application!
- In May, Seema participated in the Evolution and Long-Term Ecology (Evo-LTER) working group at the beautiful Sevilleta Field Station in the high desert of New Mexico.
- Undergrad Sophie Meng joined the lab this semester. Welcome, Sophie!
- With co-PIs Chris Muir, Lluvia Flores-Rentería, Jay Sexton, and Jeff Diez, we received our very first National Science Foundation grant to study evolutionary rescue across the geographic range of the scarlet monkeyflower. We are recruiting a graduate student to work on this NSF-funded project.
- New paper led by former postdoc Rachel Wooliver, with co-authors Emma Vtipilthorpe and Mia Wiegmann, is out in AoB Plants.
- New paper led by former M.S. student Aleah Querns, with co-authors Rachel Wooliver and Mario Vallejo-Marín, is out in Evolution Letters.
- New paper resulting from a collaboration with Jill Preston is out in Molecular Ecology.
- Kaleb Goff's undergraduate research (in collaboration with Cormac Del Rio and Kathleen Kay) has been published in the American Journal of Botany. Congrats, Kaleb!
- Kaleb, along with new PMB faculty member Will Petry, former lab manager Aeran Coughlin, and Seema, led our lab's exhibit at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences Darwin Day this year. We enjoyed a beautiful day teaching kids about how plant populations cope with climate change by moving or evolving.
- Our first paper resulting from the Research Coordinated Network for Evolution in Changing Seas has been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B! A special shoutout to Jordanna Barley and Morgan Kelly for leading the charge!
- Seema had a blast during virtual visits to the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and CU Boulder. Thanks so much to the Gaoue and Emery labs for hosting!
- Undergrads Emily Powell and Emma Wilson joined the lab this semester. Welcome, Emma and Emily!
- Seema met up with the Angert lab to do some demographic surveys of Mimulus cardinalis, and re-collected seeds from northern, central, and southern populations for ongoing resurrection studies of evolutionary responses to recent climate change.
- Kaleb and Seema participated in GLORIA Great Basin surveys in the White Mountains and Sierra Nevadas this summer. It was great to get back into the field!
- Congrats to Mia Wiegmann, Daisy Ryan, and Devin Adas on finishing their undergraduate studies and graduating from NCSU!!!
- Mia Wiegmann has begun a Certified Nursing Assistant position in the surgical intensive care unit at Duke Hospital. Congrats, Mia!!!
- Emma Vtipilthorpe received graduate student research awards from the Torrey Botanical Society, the Botanical Society of America, and the North Carolina Native Plant Society. Way to go, Emma!!!
- Honorary lab member Sam Flake successfully defended his dissertation. Sam will begin a remote postdoc with Rob Scheller at NCSU.
- We are excited to welcome Kaleb Goff to the lab as a Ph.D. student in Fall 2021. Kaleb will be working on questions related to alpine community ecology, in part using data from Gloria Great Basin.
- Tis the season for grad school admissions! In Fall 2021, Aeran Coughlin will begin a Ph.D. in Justin Wright's lab at Duke, Daisy Ryan will begin a master's with Mike Madritch at Appalachian State, and Brooke Caldwell will pursue a master's with Diana Tomback at CU Denver. Congrats to all 3!!!
- Erin Coughlin's master's thesis research has been published in Restoration Ecology. Congrats, Erin!
- Emma Vtipil's undergraduate honor's thesis work is on Early View in Ecology and Evolution. Emma worked tirelessly towards getting this work published while doing a non-thesis Master's in our lab.
- Erin Coughlin's master's thesis research has been accepted for publication in Restoration Ecology. Congrats, Erin!
- Emma Vtipil's undergraduate honor's thesis work is on Early View in Ecology and Evolution. Emma worked tirelessly towards getting this work published while doing a non-thesis Master's in our lab.
- Emma Vtipil has joined the lab as our very first PhD student. Emma is also a fellow in the Genetics and Genomics Scholars program.
- Aleah Querns accepted a Ph.D. position in Allison Louthan's lab at Kansas State University. She heads to the prairies of Kansas in January 2021!
- Aleah accepted a Ph.D. position in Allison Louthan's lab at Kansas State University. She heads to the prairies of Kansas in January 2021!
- Aleah Querns won Best Graduate Student Poster in Ecology at Botany 2020. Way to go, Aleah!
- Aleah Querns successfully defended her master's thesis comparing thermal performance curves of native and invasive populations of Mimulus guttatus. Congrats, Aleah!
- Rachel Wooliver began a postdoc position with Sindhu Jagadamma in the Biosystems Engineering & Soil Science department at the University of Tennessee on a USDA-funded project exploring impacts of crop diversity on soil health and resilience to climate change. Congrats, Rachel!
- Rachel Wooliver's paper investigating the evolution of thermal performance curves in response to recent climate change across the geographic range of scarlet monkeyflower is on early view in Evolution.
- Rachel and Aleah presented their work at Botany 2020 in July. Rachel received a postdoctoral travel award to support her virtual attendance!
- Emma Vtipil completed a non-thesis master's degree, and we are thrilled that she will be joining the lab as our first Ph.D. student in the fall!
- Our Tansley review on determinants of range size in plants, with co-authors Naia Morueta-Holme and Amy Angert, has been published in New Phytologist
- Rachel, Aleah, Emma, and Seema traveled to the Southeastern Population Ecology and Evolutionary Genetics meeting in Clemson, South Carolina. Congrats to Emma on winning 2nd place for best grad student poster!
- Many congrats to undergrad extraordinaire Brooke Caldwell on graduating this fall! We are happy she'll continue to work in the lab next semester.
- Seema had a blast giving seminars at Kellogg Biological Station, Duke, and Tulane! Thanks to the Fitzpatrick, Morris, and Ferris labs for hosting!
- The Sheth Lab participated in Darwin Day at the NC Museum of Natural Science. We made a hopscotch game to teach kids about how evolution and range shifts can help species cope with climate change.
- At VERY long last, we have completed pollinations for our resurrection study involving northern, central, and southern populations of Mimulus cardinalis. Mad props to Erin, Rachel, Emma, and Mia for all of their efforts!
- Erin has been busy conducting tons of growth trials on the Mimulus ringens seeds we collected
- Aleah’s thesis project is in full swing to test whether invasive vs. native genotypes of Mimulus guttatus differ in their plastic responses to temperature
- Our very first publication with GLORIA Great Basin is on early view in American Journal of Botany
- Our paper led by Meagan Oldfather on range edges in heterogeneous environments is on early view in Global Change Biology
- Our Tansley review on determinants of range size in plants, with co-authors Naia Morueta-Holme and Amy Angert, has been accepted for publication in New Phytologist
- Rachel completed her thermal performance experiment and presented the results at the International Biogeography Society meeting in Quito
- Aleah began her experiment to compare plasticity of native and invasive genotypes of Mimulus guttatus
- Emma joined the lab as a non-thesis master's student
- Aleah and Emma were awarded travel grants from the American Society of Naturalists to attend the SEPEEG meeting at Clemson University
- Erin planned and completed seed collections across the latitudinal range of Mimulus ringens
- Two new undergrads, Brooke Caldwell and Mariah Kidd, joined the lab
- Rachel successfully cultured leaf endophytes from Mimulus cardinalis and Mimulus ringens to study their role in conferring stress tolerance
- Seema did field work with GLORIA Great Basin in the White Mountains of California
- Seema, along with Meagan Oldfather and Dena Grossenbacher, organized a colloquium on Dynamics and Demography of Alpine Islands at the Botany meeting in Tucson
- Seema participated in the Evolving Seas Synthesis Workshop at Shoals Marine Lab
- We had papers accepted in Evolution, American Journal of Botany, and Global Change Biology!
- Emma Vtipil has been accepted as a non-thesis Master's student in the Department of Plant & Microbial Biology at NCSU. We feel so very fortunate to have Emma join the lab as a graduate student in Fall 2019!
- We are thrilled to welcome our new lab manager, Erin Coughlin, to our team!
- Rachel Wooliver's review paper is out in Functional Ecology. Read the full paper here, and a summary here. Congrats, Rachel!
- Congrats to Emma Vtipil and Natalie Gold on graduating from NCSU! Emma will begin a non-thesis Master's program in our lab in the fall, and Natalie has joined Eurofins CEI, an asbestos testing lab in Cary, as a PCM and Mold Analyst.
- Emma Vtipil received awards for Outstanding Senior in Scholarship for both the Department of Plant & Microbial Biology and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences here at NCSU. Congrats on these well-earned awards, Emma!
- Rachel's Journal of Ecology paper on the role of soil fungi in plant responses to soil nitrogen was selected as Editor's Choice. Congrats, Rachel!
- Seema had a wonderful visit to the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Vermont. Many thanks to Jill Preston's lab for hosting!
- New paper in Evolution with Mason Kulbaba, Rachel Pain, and Ruth Shaw: Expression of additive genetic variance for fitness in a population of partridge pea in two field sites
- Seema had a blast participating in the Green Life Sciences Symposium at the University of Michigan. Kudos to Gina Baucom and the other organizers for putting together an amazing and diverse lineup of presenters!
- We are so excited to welcome Aleah Querns, the lab's very first graduate student!
- Dr. Rachel Wooliver joined the lab as a postdoctoral research associate. We are thrilled to welcome Rachel to the lab!
- Emma Vtipil has been awarded a Chilton Undergraduate Research Award through NCSU's Dept. of Plant & Microbial Biology for her honor's thesis research on the evolution of flowering time in response to climate change in the scarlet monkeyflower. Huge congrats to Emma on receiving this prestigious scholarship!
- Seema had a wonderful visit with the EEBio group at the University of Virginia. A special thanks to Galloway Lab postdoc Matt Koski for being such an excellent host!
- Aleah Querns will be beginning a Master's degree in the lab this fall. We are excited to welcome our very first graduate student!
- Seema gave a seminar in the Forestry and Environmental Resources Department here at NCSU. It was great to interact with Tom Gower and the amazing group of new assistant professors in the department.
- We are lucky to have three stellar undergraduate researchers working in the lab: Emma Vtipil, Collin Yurish, and Mia Wiegmann!
- Seema, along with co-author and range limits extraordinaire Amy Angert, published a new paper in PNAS: Demographic compensation does not rescue populations at a trailing range edge