The Kerr Lab

Highlighted research from previous 482 students:

Cat Adams

I am a gram-negative broad that normally dwells in soil-filled environments such as cheap college apartments. I am interested in a wide variety of topics such as co-evolution, tradeoffs, cooperation, adaptive landscapes, and fitting as many trays as possible into the autoclave. As an undergraduate, I'm conducting an experiment with Myxococcus xanthus, a slime bacteria that engages in many social activities such as group predation and the formation of fruiting bodies. The goal of my experiment is to perform fitness tests between altruists and cheats, in hopes of finding results that help to answer the question, “How are cooperative behaviors maintained in the face of cheats and defectors?”

Zach Baldwin

I am interested in the evolution and ecology of deep-sea organisms, especially fishes. Topics I am interested include fish systematics, especially of Stomiid fishes; mechanisms for speciation in the open ocean/deep-sea; overall midwater community ecology; deep benthic-epipelagic trophic coupling via meso- and bathypelagic communities; deep-sea fisheries; deep-sea conservation; environmental policy; public outreach on evolution and deep-sea related topics; and deep-sea inspired artwork. I plan to go for my Ph.D. upon completion of my undergraduate degrees. I am currently working on a number of projects related to deep-sea fishes. Projects include: Revision of the stomiid genus Trigonolampa, describing new species of the liparid genus Paraliparis from Alaskan waters with Dr. James Orr (NMFS), feeding ecology of stomiiform fishes in the western North Atlantic Ocean with Ph.D. student Chris Kenaley (UW) and long-term goal of revising the stomiid genus Leptostomias.

Sara Drescher

I am an undergrad double majoring in biology and public health, and so am very interested in research into areas where ecology and health intermingle. Right now I am working with Haley, Kelsey, and Susan on a project that deals with how E.coli adapt to different speeds of environmental change. My role is primarily to help develop new ways of measuring the fitness of different strains.

Kelsey Hobbs

I am working on a project that looks at cooperation between organisms. We are using Myxobacteria, a single celled bacterium that forms multicellular fruiting bodies under stressful conditions, to study why individual organisms sometimes sacrifice certain evolutionary benefits for the survival of the group and how "cheaters" affect the fitness of a population.

Claire Levy

I'm exploring antibiotic resistance in E. coli and how structuring E. coli populations affects fitness in a variety of antibiotic environments. In general, my research interests include large and small-scale evolutionary ecology, biology and ecology of intertidal communities and almost anything having to do with insects!

Haley Lindsey

I am an undergrad majoring in ecology and evolution. My research concerns how organisms adapt to different gradients of selective pressure, that is, whether a sudden change in the environment selects for different mutations than does a gradual change. I work on the RifRamp project, where we let E. coli evolve by serial transfer in treatment groups exposed to different gradients of the antibiotic rifampicin. I am currently working on analyzing the mutations of the evolved E. coli with PCR and sequencing.

Susan Taylor

In the face of global climate change, it's crucial we understand evolution in changing environments. Specifically, will populations persist or go extinct? If they persist, how will they adapt? Since taking Advanced Experimental Evolutionary Ecology (Biology 482) in autumn of 2006 I've been part of a great team in the Kerr lab working on these questions. Our real-time evolution project tests if the same selective pressure, applied at different rates, favors different mutations. Using an E. coli model system we explore how populations evolve in changing environments. My particular focus has been on assessing the phenotypic consequences of these adaptations.

Marc Wiseman

I am using E. coli as a model to look at the effects of community assembly on the evolutionary trajectory of an organism as well as generalist-specialist interactions.