July 2021:
Faith Walker receives an Arizona Dept of Health Services ABRC grant for rabies research! This grant will be using feces for rabies surveillance.
June 2021:
Emma Federman is our new undergraduate researcher. Welcome to the team, Emma!
May 2021:
Jordyn Upton receives the Keim Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Research, which rewards student dedication and leadership to the pursuit of future research.
April 2021:
Jacque Lyman receives NAU’s President’s Prize, the highest honor an undergraduate at NAU can receive. Further, Jacque is also awarded an outstanding research award at NAU’s Undergraduate Symposium for her lizard project.
March 2021:
Jordyn Upton and Jacque Lyman are to receive one of NAU’s most celebrated undergraduate awards, the Gold Axe Award.
March 2021:
Jordyn Upton and Jacque Lyman are to receive one of NAU’s most celebrated undergraduate awards, the Gold Axe Award.
February 2021:
Dan Sanchez receives the AZTWS Roger Hungerford Student Award for significant contributions to the management and conservation of Arizona’s wildlife.
January 2021:
Colin Sobek, Jordyn Upton, and Faith Walker have three papers published in the Wombat Special Issue of Australian Mammalogy.
December 2020:
Number of papers published, in review, or submitted for peer-review in 2020: 16
September 2020:
Congratulations to Samantha Hershauer, who starts her Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz.
August 2019:
Adiós to Jacque Lyman and Jordyn Upton, who are headed to Alicante, Spain. Jacque will be working in an andrology lab, while Jordyn works in a vertebrate genetics lab as part of their study abroad.
February 2019:
Undergraduate researchers Samantha Hershauer and Jacque Lyman presented talks at The Wildlife Society JAM in Albuquerque, NM.
January 2019:
The Ancient DNA Lab has moved to Bilby Research Center! We now work in positive pressure rooms to help prevent contamination of sensitive samples, and have one room for bone grinding and another for DNA extractions.
September 2018:
Congratulations to Jordyn Upton for winning the poster competition at the wombat conference in Adelaide, South Australia.
September 2018:
Colin Sobek and Jordyn Upton fly to Australia for a wombat meeting and research.
August 2018:
Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Jordyn Upton for her research exchange (RCN g2p2pop) with a South Australian research team.
July 2018:
Bon voyage to undergraduate researcher Austin Dikeman, who heads to Paris for her internship at the Curie Institute as part of her year abroad.
June 2018:
We’re off to Zambia for our NAU Study Abroad to study wildlife issues and to support the local community via the Maxwell-Lutz Community Impact Award. We’ll also deploy Species from Feces Mobile, our field sequencing kit that fits in a backpack. Stay tuned for photos on Flickr.
April 2018:
Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Austin Dikeman for receiving a national Goldwater Scholarship, the NAU Award of Excellence in Undergraduate Inquiry & Creativity, 3rd place at NAU UGRADS, and a NAU Paul A. Sciame Scholarship!
April 2018:
Congratulations to undergraduate researcher Samantha Hershauer for receiving a HURA, NASA USRP internship, and a Jerry O Wolf Scholarship!
Jordyn Upton, our Intern-2-Scholar, is genotyping southern hairy-nosed wombats from hairs!
Jan 2018:
Congratulations to Daniel Sanchez for a 2018-2019 ARCS Scholarship!
We have two new undergraduate researchers! Samantha Hershauer has joined the Ancient DNA Core, and Jacqueline Lyman will be barcoding plant species for the jumping mouse diet project. Welcome to the team, Samantha and Jacque!
June 2017:
We hosted Rodrigo Medellin, the Bat Man of Mexico, to show him spotted bats. Click our Flickr link below for photos.
Research Specialist Daniel Sanchez is awarded an NSF Graduate Fellowship to pursue his PhD with our team. Congratulations, Dan!
Undergraduate Researcher Austin Dikeman received student award from the AZ-NM Wildlife Society in Feb 2017. Congratulations, Austin!
Ancient DNA Newsflash: We have successfully sequenced a gene of an 8,500 year old bison.
Faith Walker and Research Specialist Colin Sobek are off to Australia to re-visit genetic sampling of the southern hairy-nosed wombat, from non-invasively collected hairs.
Ribbon-cutting ceremony for our new Ancient DNA Lab was in April 2016 (see Flickr photo gallery).
Faith and Carol chaired a genomics session at the International Bat Research Conference in South Africa in August 2016.
Genetic and genomic analysis to determine diet of the endangered New Mexico meadow jumping mouse is in full swing.