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Megan Lind Undergraduate Honors Student University of Vermont e-mail Megan |
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Megan graduated in May, 2013 and was in the Honors College and one of our outstanding majorst. Megan joined us in her Sophomore year, and completed her Senior Honors project in the lab. From her first days in the lab, Megan proved to be a Jill-of-all-trades, working on a wide variety of studies, including a survey of the white blood cell classes of lizards, the genetic diversity of Plasmodium mexicanum, and developing variable genetic markers for a sand fly species, including RAPDs and microsatellites. In addition to being a skilled laboratory researcher, Megan spent two summers at the California field site working with Dr. Anne Vardo-Zalik of Penn State University on the sand fly vector of P. mexicanum. Megan's work was honored with a summer APLE fellowship, one of only only a few awarded each year by College of Arts and Sciences. For her Honors project, Megan chose an ambitious research program. She sought to understand the genetic diversity of the malaria parasite, and asked if specific clones of the parasite are more or less likely to occur in mixed-clone infections than others, the first time this has been done for any malaria parasite. Gathering the data involved extensive field work and then a huge number of hours in the lab getting the data on clones within infected lizards. The next big problem was how to analyze the data. Megan chose to use new statistical methods worked on by our Dr. Nick Gotelli to understand how species occur in communities in positive, negative, or neutral associations. The software proved powerful, and gave beautiful insights into how parasite clones may interact. This was the first time the new statistical method was used to examine genetic data. Her result is now in preparation for submission to a major journal. As an undergraduate, Megan blended interests she inherited from her parents: a planned career in medicine (her father is a cardiologist) and fencing (her mother was a varsity fencer as an undergraduate). Megan has competed in fencing at the national level, third one year, and in her Senior year she placed first in the nation in her event. We had a national champ in the lab! We tried not to make jokes about the a medical professional who can stab 'em and then treat 'em (OK, that was a joke). Megan worked in a medical office after graduation and is now applying for entry into PA programs. |
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Annika Nilsson Undergraduate Research Student University of Vermont e-mail Annika |
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Annika is now a Senior Anthropology major and plans a career in public health and international development. Her interests began early in life because Annika comes from a family involved in public health research and she has lots of world travel experience. Annika wisely sought us out to learn something about research methods in infectious disease, was in the lab for two years. Annika worked closely with graduate student Alli Neal, helping both with the molecular studies and extracting lots of data from the microscope blood smears (old-fashioned counting of parasites), and became a very valuable member of the lab group. Annika's genotyping results proved so reliable that she became the lab's research assistant for two years, in 2012 and 2013, producing excellent data for the ongoing studies of P. mexicanum genetic diversity. For Annika's Junior project she looked at the Plasmodium mexicanum gametocyte sex ratio at sites where the parasite is common vs. rare to test one prediction from sex ratio theory (that high prevalence means high clonal diversity and thus a less female-biased sex ratio). Annika also worked in training another undergrad in the lab. She has now left us! Annika is no working on her Senior Honors project on women's health in the Burlington area, a good entry into her future career in public health. | ||
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Krystina Kattermann Undergraduate Research Apprenticet University of Vermont e-mail Krystina |
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Krystina was "discovered" when she was a student in the introductory biology course for the top entering life science students taught by Schall. She did so well, that we lured her into the lab. Krystina is a Microbiology and Molecular Genetics major with a medical career in her future. During her first semester as a Research Apprentice, Krystina helped in a variety of lab duties, and in her second semester she worked with graduate student Alli Neal's study of gametocyte sex ratio at sites where the malaria parasite is common vs. rare. Krystina is an avid athlete, competing in downhill skiing in high school, and now swimming here at UVM. But, she has moved now into a lab in our Micorbiology and Molecular Genetics Department to gain additional training and experience. | ||
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Leah Rogstad Undergraduate Honors Student University of Vermont e-mail Leah |
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Leah joined the lab in the spring 2013 semester. She was a student in our introductory biology course offered for the top entering life science majors taught by Dr. Schall. She did so well that we threw out bread crumbs to lead her into the lab. Leah is interested in a career in public health and international development (and thus is a Global Studies major), and seemed a perfect match for the lab (infectious disease!). She is working with our other public health fan, Annika Nilsson. Leah has now moved into the laboratory of Dr. Lori Stevens to work on tropical parasitology and medical entomology Leah is fluent in Spanish and has spent long periods in Latin America and wishes to work on the Stevens lab project in Central America. | ||