Current Lab Members

Christian L. Cox, Associate Professor
​Email   Google Scholar Profile
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I am an integrative evolutionary biologist who combines physiology, genetics, and transcriptomics to understand the evolution of functional, phenotypic and genetic variation in a broad geographic and temporal context. Most of my research is with reptiles and amphibians, but I have also worked with invertebrates. 

Join the lab!

Elizabeth Hoffman, PhD student
Elizabeth is broadly interested in evolution, ecology, and behavior of tropical ectotherms. She received a BS in Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology at Purdue University, where she studied impacts of PFAS in Northern watersnakes. She also studied semiaquatic anoles in Costa Rica during a semester abroad and is looking forward to developing a dissertation around anoles in the experimental system in Panama.

Emma Schmitz, PhD student
Emma is interested in ecology, evolution, and neurobiology. She received a BS in Biology from the University of Nevada Reno, where she worked on a variety of projects on thermal biology both in Panama and around Reno, Nevada. Emma is interested in studying evolution, behavior, and neurobiology of anoles both in Florida and Panama. 

Collaborators

Lab Alumni

Kelly Wuthrich, PhD student
Kelly is an integrative evolutionary ecologist interested in the mechanisms underlying phenotypic plasticity. For her dissertation, she explored the transcriptomic and epigenomic responses underlying heat tolerance plasticity in a tropical lizard. She is now a Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Arizona State University in the Song Lab studying the functional genomics underlying Schistocerca locust phase-change polyphenism. Check out her website to learn more about her research. ​

Leah Bakewell, PhD student
Using reptiles and amphibians as models, Leah aims to understand how organismal physiology and ecology, the environment, and disease interact and how these interactions will affect the persistence of organisms as the environment continues to change.  For her dissertation, Leah studied how rapid environmental change impacts immune function and parasite dynamics in our experimental island system in Panama as well as with the various species of anole lizards in Florida. Leah is now an Assistant Professor of Biology at Northeastern State University in Oklahoma. Check out her website to learn more about research in her lab. 

Noah Gripshover, PhD student
Noah has broad interests in ecology and evolution, particularly in the evolution of feeding. Noah got his undergraduate degree from the University of Louisville. He joined the lab at Florida International University from the University of Cincinatti, where he got his M.S. studying feeding behavior of crayfish snakes. For his dissertation, Noah used molecular phylogenomics to study the evolution of feeding behavior and  trophic morphology in the hyper-diverse snake genus Tantilla. Noah is now a postdoctoral research associate in Chris Anderson's lab at South Dakota State University, where is studying thermal adaptation to feeding in chameleons. 

Dr. Ian Clifton, Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr. Clifton is an integrative biologist  broadly interested in rapid phenotypic responses to changing environments in amphibians and reptiles. He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Florida International University, where he combined fieldwork, laboratory work, and experimental transplants to understand the response to climate change. He is now an assistant professor of ecology at the University of Arkansas Little Rock. Check out his website to learn more about research in his lab. 

Patrick Hennessey, GSU M.S. Student Email
Patrick is interested in ecology and evolution, particularly skull evolution. He joined the lab from Queen Mary University in London, where he studied ecology of snakes in Honduras and skull evolution in crocodiles. In our lab, his research was focused on skull evolution in the snake genus Tantilla. Patrick graduated with an M.S. from Georgia Southern University in the summer of 2021. ​

Scott Meyer, GSU M.S. Student Email
Scott is interested in ecology and conservation genetics. He joins the lab from the Ohio University, where he studied the feeding ecology of invasive crayfishes. Along with Jamie Roberts and the Coastal Plain Fisheries lab, he studied the conservation genetics of imperiled unionid mussels. Scott graduated with an M.S. from Georgia Southern University in the spring of 2021.

Lauren Wilson, GSU M.S. Student Email
Lauren is interested in ecology, evolution, and conservation biology. She joined the lab from Maryville College, where she studied sea turtle conservation in Costa Rica. For her thesis, she studied the ecology of coral snake mimicry in the montane tropics of Central America. Lauren graduated from Georgia Southern University in the summer of 2020.

Adam Rosso, GSU M.S. Student Email
Adam is interested in physiology, ecology, evolution, and genomics. He joined the lab from the University of California-Merced, where he studied the ecology and evolution of lizards on Greek islands. For his thesis, he studied the plasticity of gene expression and physiology in response to a changing climate. Adam graduated from Georgia Southern University in the Spring of 2020, and is currently beginning a PhD program at the University of Texas-Arlington. 

John David Curlis, GSU M.S. Student

​John David Curlis is interested in the evolution and physiology of  reptiles and amphibians. He joined the lab in 2015 from the University of Virginia, where he studied physiology, performance and behavior of anoles (Anolis sagrei, A. limifrons and A. humilis) and spiny iguanas (Ctenosaura similis) in the laboratory and in the field in Florida and Costa Rica. His thesis work focused on the evolution of mimetic and non-mimetic traits is the highly polymorphic ground snake. John David graduated in December 2017 with his Master's degree. He got his PhD at the University of Michigan with Alison Davis Rabosky, and is now an Visiting Assistant Professor at Hamilton College. Check out his website to learn more about his research.

Albert Chung, GSU M.S. Student 

Albert is interested in ecology, evolutionary biology and physiology. He joined the lab from the University of Virginia, where he studied immune function and parasitism in brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) in the field. His thesis work focused on the sexual divergence in phenotype and gene expression of brown anoles during development. Albert graduated in December of 2018 and received another M.S. from Princeton University.

Ryann Heninger, Undergraduate Student

Ryann is a biology student at Georgia Southern University. Ryann's research focused on how habitat mediates the evolution of decoy coloration in lizards, and was published in the journal Zoology in 2020!

Kimberley McInnes, GSU Undergraduate Student

Kimberley is a biology student at Georgia Southern University. She worked on the Pond Recovery Project at Georgia Southern, which is funded by the Center for Sustainability from the Student Sustainability Fee. Student Sustainability Fees at Work!

Jessica Bowers, GSU Undergraduate Student
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Jessica Bowers studied spatial and temporal heterogeneity of color pattern in the polymorphic cricket frog in natural populations in southern Georgia. She graduated with her bachelor's in 2017 and Master's in 2019 at Georgia Southern University, where she studied cuttlefish behavior and neurobiology. Jessica began a PhD program at the University of Maryland in Fall of 2020. 

Tacarie Lewis, GSU Undergraduate Student

Tacarie is a biology student at Georgia Southern University. He worked on the Pond Recovery Project at Georgia Southern,  which is funded by the Center for Sustainability from the Student Sustainability Fee. Student Sustainability Fees at Work!

Al-Amin Younis, GSU Undergraduate Student

Al-Amin is a biology student at Georgia Southern University. He is working on the image analysis for the coral snake mimicry project in Honduras.

Chinonye Obialo, GSU Undergraduate Student
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Chinonye Obialo studied the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of color pattern for cricket frogs in the Georgia Southern Herpetology Collection. Chinonye graduated in 2016, and is pursuing a career in the health fields. 

Hillariann Tribble, GSU Undergraduate Student

Hilariann studied the thermal sensitivity of performance in the centipede Scolopocryptops sexspinosus. In fact, she developed the assays that current students are using to study these critters! Hilariann graduated from Georgia Southern in 2016, and is pursuing a career in biomedical sciences. 

Zachariah Degon, GSU Undergraduate Student

Zach was broadly interested in ecology and evolutionary biology. His projects in the laboratory focused on studying the function and evolution of antipredator coloration in squamates. He began a M.S. degree at the University of Central Arkansas in Fall of 2020. His undergraduate research was published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society in 2019. 

Shane Richardson, GSU Undergraduate Student

Shane is interested in natural resources management. While in the lab at Georgia Southern University, he studied the thermal physiology and behavior of centipedes.

Kyle Sweeney, GSU Undergraduate Student

Kyle is a biology student at Georgia Southern University. He studied the evolution of dewlap size and color in anole lizards.

Quinn Taylor, GSU Undergraduate Student

Quinn is broadly interested in ecology, evolutionary biology, and conservation. Her project in the laboratory focused on studying size-dependent predation in rough earth snakes, and was published in the Journal of Zoology in 2019.