The spiral ginger evolution project is composed of a group of superstar PI’s, senior collaborators, postdocs, graduate students, and undergraduate students:

Principal Investigators: 

Kathleen Kay (Lead PI)

I’m fascinated by the diversity of the natural world and enjoy looking at life’s challenges from a plant’s perspective. I still can’t believe I get paid to do this. I’m happiest when found backpacking in the high Sierra, watching hummingbirds in the tropical forests, or trail running in the Santa Cruz mountains.

kmkay at ucsc.edu – lab website: https://kay.eeb.ucsc.edu/

 

Santiago Ramírez (PI)

Research interests: Evolution, adaptation, and speciation of plant-pollinator mutualisms. Comparative and population genomics of bees and their associated host plants. Phylogenetics, chemical ecology, neuroethology, and natural history of insect-plant interactions.

lab website: http://sanramlab.org/

 

Carlos Garcia-Robledo (PI)

Carlos received his B.Sc. in Biology from the Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia). He obtained his Ph.D. in Biology at the University of Miami. His research focuses on understanding the process of colonization and adaptation of organisms to novel environments.

lab website: http://carlosgarciarobledo.org/UCONN/

 

Jennifer Funk (PI)

Jennifer received her B.A. from University of California, Berkeley and PhD from Stony Brook University. She did her postdoctoral work at Stanford University, and joined Chapman in 2007. Jen’s research interests include plant ecophysiology, invasion biology, and restoration ecology.

lab website: http://www1.chapman.edu/~jlfunk/

 

 

 

Dena Grossenbacher (PI)

Dena is interested in how plant-environment interactions generate and maintain plant diversity, and the processes underlying the origin and extinction of species. She primarily uses the California flora to address these questions because of its astonishing variation both among and within species.

Lab website: https://grossenbacherlab.wordpress.com/

 

 

Senior Collaborators:

Gregory Goldsmith

Gregory’s research centers on understanding the functional response of tropical plants to present and future climate. To answer my questions, he draws on tools from the fields of ecophysiology, ecology, micrometeorology, hydrology, stable isotope biogeochemistry, and remote sensing. He also has a an equal interest in studying the efficacy of educational technology for promoting public understanding and engagement in science.

lab website: http://www.gregrgoldsmith.com/

 

Marjorie Weber

Marjorie is an evolutionary ecologist, interested in how ecological interactions impact phenotypic evolution and diversification across evolutionary scales. Her research focuses on the interactions between plants and arthropods, and evaluates hypotheses that link plant-arthropod interactions with macroevolutionary pattern. She works in many systems, including ant-plant and ant-mite mutualisms, plant defense against herbivory and disease, and plant-pollination interactions.

Lab website: http://www.theweberlab.com/

 

Diego Salazar Amoretti

Our Lab currently follows several lines of inquiry yet, we are also moving forward to expand our work into new exciting avenues of research. The following is not only a list of our current work but also some of the exciting new ideas we are starting to explore.

lab website: http://myweb.fiu.edu/dsalazar/

 

Postdocs:

Eleinis Ávila-Lovera 

Eleinis is a plant ecophysiologist interested in studying the mechanisms behind drought tolerance. My current work focuses on understanding the role of abiotic factors (climate and soil) on adaptation and rapid speciation of the Neotropical spiral gingers (Costus).

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eleinis_Avila-Lovera2

 

Oscar Vargas 

Oscar’s research focuses on understating spatio-temporal patterns of plant evolution in the Neotropics by incorporating phylogenomics, comparative phylogentics, and biogeography. He brings expertise in phylogenomics and Neotropical plant diversification to the project.

Website: http://oscarmvargas.com/

 

Graduate Students:

 

Rossana Maguiña 

Rossana comes to us from Peru, and is working on pollinator-driven diversification of the spiral gingers (genus Costus) in the Peruvian Amazon.

Website: https://rossanamaguina.wordpress.com/

 

 

Julia Harenčár

Julia started Fall 2018 after finishing her Master’s at Cal Poly SLO and having many adventures traveling the world. She will be working on the genetic basis of adaptation and speciation in Costus.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Julia_Harencar