Kira Delmore
Kira is the PI in the lab. She obtained her BSCH, MA and PhD at universities in Canada (Queen’s University, Universities of Calgary and British Columbia) before spending 3 years as a Postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in northern Germany. Her research is motivated by understanding where diversity originated in the natural world and how it is maintained. She is inspired by the varied ways in which hybrid zones can be used to understand this topic.
Bird she is most like: Snowy owl
Email: kdelmore@bio.tamu.edu; Phone: 979-900-2129
Postdocs
Steph Blain
Steph is a Postdoc in the lab. She joined in Fall 2022 after completing her PhD in Zoology at the University of British Columbia where she studied competitive interactions and phenotypic divergence among sympatric fish populations. She is interested in the processes driving early stages of divergence between populations and species. She is tackling these questions using the Swainson’s thrush in her position with the Delmore lab.
Bird she is most like: Mourning dove
Email: sblain@exchange.tamu.edu
Flavia Termignoni
Flavia is a Postdoc in the lab. As an evolutionary biologist, genomicist, behavioral ecologist, and conservationist, Flavia Termignoni-Garcia delves into the feathered frenzy of sociogenomics. Specializing in the genomic basis of behaviors in birds, Flavia merges molecular biology, genomics, neuroscience, and behavioral biology into one delightful cocktail of science. Armed with the latest -omic technologies she studies birds in their natural habitats, ensuring they’re living their best (and most social) lives. Whether it’s decoding the chirps or understanding avian social networks, Flavia is on a mission to uncover the molecular evolutionary secrets of our feathered friends.
Bird she is most like: American crow
Email: flaviatg@tamu.edu
Gina Calabrese
Gina is a Postdoc in the lab. She received an NSF PRFB in Fall 2022. She is sponsored by Dr. Delmore and two other PIs – Drs. Rebecca Safran and Jochen Wolf. Gina studies the evolution of behavior and how behavioral traits contribute to adaptation and speciation. This line of inquiry has led her to work on a variety of topics throughout her Masters (University of Texas at Austin) and PhD (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) including sensory ecology, reinforcement, and how mating signals are responding to climate change. Her postdoc work studies how migration behavior contributes to speciation, including broad phylogenetic patterns and the genomic signatures of divergence across migratory divides in Barn Swallows. Gina is also passionate about teaching and has extensive experience and professional development in evidence-based and inclusive teaching in Biology.
Graduate students and technicians
Hannah Justen
Hannah is a PhD student in the lab. She started her PhD in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program in the Fall of 2018 after finishing her Masters at Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel in Germany. Hannah brings a tremendous amount of field experience to the lab along with knowledge of how variation at CLOCK, a key component of the circadian clock, correlates with migratory variation in songbirds.
Email: hjusten@bio.tamu.edu
Sope Adeniji
Sope joined the lab as a Research Technician in the summer of 2022 after completing her Masters as Auburn University. She has stayed on as a PhD student in the Biology Department at Texas A&M. Sope is pioneering work on the epigenetics of seasonal migration in our lab.
Bird she is most like: American kestrel
Email: odadeniji@bio.tamu.edu
Lauren Doellinger
Lauren is a Masters student in the lab. She joined in Fall 2023 after completing her undergraduate with a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Washington State University. Lauren is pioneering work on mito-nuclear interactions in our lab.
Bird she is most like: Mourning dove
Email: ldoellinger@tamu.edu
Rachel Urban
Rachel is a PhD student in the lab. She started her PhD in the Biology Department in the fall of 2023. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Butler University in Indianapolis, where she completed her undergraduate thesis on seasonal plasticity in butterfly wing patterns. Rachel is fascinated by color and will be studying the reproductive barriers (including male iridescent gorget color) between Ruby-throated and Black-chinned hummingbirds utilizing data from hybrid zones in Texas and Oklahoma.
Bird she is most like: Northern mockingbird
Email: rurban@tamu.edu
Sarah Vastani
Sarah is a Masters student in the lab. She joined the lab in Spring 2024 from the Math Department. She completed her undergraduate with a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Texas A&M University. Sarah will be working on a bioinformatics project involving the Swainson's thrushes.
Bird she is most like: Mourning dove
Email: sarahvastani@gmail.com
Shasta Corvus
Shasta joined the lab as a PhD student in 2024 after finishing their Masters at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Shasta is interested in understanding ways in which anthropogenic disturbances, especially climate change, affect avian ecology and evolution. Following their interests, they have joined the lab to investigate the consequences of temperature on migration timing in Purple Martins.
Bird they are most like: Bluejay
Email: shasta.corvus@tamu.edu
Undergraduate students
Ritu Chauhan
Ritu is an undergrad in the lab. She is a Biology major with a minor in Psychology. She joined the lab in 2022 and is currently working on analyzing male hummingbird shuttle displays. Ritu plans to pursue Physician Assistant school after graduation.
Bird she is most like: Great blue heron
Ashley Graham
Ashley is an undergrad in the lab. She is majoring in Biology and minoring in Performance Studies. She joined the lab 2023 doing fieldwork in the Black-chinned and Ruby-throated hybrid zone. She hopes to go to grad school for Marine Biology and eventually work to conserve marine wildlife.
Michelle Chang
Michelle is an undergrad in the lab. She is a Biology major with a minor in Business and Psychology. She joined the lab Spring 2023 and has been working on quantifying feather colors of the Black-hinned and Ruby-throated hummingbirds. In the future, Michelle wants to be a Physician Assistant and work in the medical field.
Bird she is most like: American kestrel
Aeris Clarkson
Aeris is an undergrad in the lab. She is currently working on a project to quantify tail feather shape in Black-chinned and Ruby-throated hummingbirds. After graduation, she plans to pursue a PhD in conservation biology.
Bird she is most like: Yellow-billed magpie
mary cornett
Mary is an undergrad in the lab. She is a biology major with a business minor and joined the lab during the Spring of 2024. She is working on a meta analysis summarizing literature on cline analyses in hybrid zones.
Bird she is most like: Peregrine falcon
Alumni
Evelien deGreef
Evelien completed her MSc in Biological Sciences at the University of Manitoba (UM) in Summer 2019. She obtained her BSc at the University of California, Davis, then worked as the program coordinator for the Putah Creek Nestbox Highway for two and a half years studying cavity nesting songbirds. Her interest in avian migration led her to investigate genetic influences on migration timing in Purple Martins for her Master's which was co-supervised by Kevin Fraser from UM and Kira.
Matt McKim Louder
Matt joined the lab in the Spring 2021. He studied Behavioral Ecology during his MS and PhD at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Neurobiology and Genomics during his postdoctoral training at East Carolina University, University of Illinois, and the University of Tokyo. His research focuses on understanding the genetic and neural mechanisms that guide behavioral development and how this process influences phenotypic diversification.