Current Lab Personnel
Tanner Bahm: Tanner is a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University. She is currently a first year graduate student in the Piller lab. She is exploring thesis ideas, but is currently using eDNA to address invasive carp in Louisiana. She formerly worked her familiy’s donut shop, but has yet to provide us with a sampling of any of these donuts.
Email: tanner.bahm@southeastern.edu
Camryn Bigelow: Camryn is a graduate of Texas A&M Galveston. She is currently a second year graduate student in the Piller lab. She is examining invertebrate biodiversity in Lake Maurepas using eDNA. We don’t yet have a lot of dirt on her yet, but I assume we will find it before she graduates.
Email:camryn.bigelow@southeastern.edu
Emily Vanaselja: Emily is a graduate of the University of South Florida. She is a second year graduate student and she is examining spatial and temporal aspects of the fish community in Lake Maurepas using eDNA. She likes Taylor Swift, which means she will never have control of the radio in the field truck. She also has trouble parallel-parking.
Email: emily.vanaselja@southeastern.edu
Gretchen Hilt: Gretchen is a recent graduate of the University of Tampa. She is being co-advised by Drs. Chris Beachy and Kyle Piller. We feel sorry for her because she will be caught in the middle of these two old curmudgeons. Gretchen is from Illinois, so that automatically puts her on the cool list. One interesting fact about Gretchen is that she likes line-dancing, which makes us think she has good balance, but we recently found out that she has trouble walking on wet surfaces and has the tendency to lose her balance, fall down, and embarrass herself. Her thesis project will focus on developing an eDNA assay to detect and monitor the Georgia Blind Cave Salamander, Eurycea wallacei.
Email: gretchen.hilt@southeastern.edu
Madie Denman is from Ohio, but did her undergraduate degree at Transylvania University in Lexington, KY, where she played college lacrosse. Within ichthyological circles, Transylvania University is the former (and current) institution for Constantine Rafinesque, famous naturalist, who was a former faculty member there and is currently buried there! For her thesis project, Madie will be investigating the impacts that reservoirs have on gene flow in one or more species of southeastern fishes. We are still working on which reservoir (-s) and species she will be studying but hope to have this resolved soon.
Email: madeline.denman@southeastern.edu
Ben Schuster is a native of Michigander, obtaining his BS in Wildlife and Fisheries from Michigan State University. He is a big Detroit sports fan, and dislikes the Wolverines (I agree). He thinks that he will be a ringer on our departmental intramural softball team. Little does he know that we already have some veteran all-start beer league softball players that will dominate. For his thesis project, he will be examining swimbladder evolution in Percina (Percidae) through the use of Micro-CT scanning and phylogenetic comparative methods..
Email: benjamin.schuster@southeastern.edu
Calvin Whitney is a first year graduate student in the lab. He completed his BS in Biology at Ball State University in 2024. For his thesis project, he will be gathering ddRAd data to conduct a phylogeographic study of the Flathead Catfish (Pylodictus olivaris), a wide-spread, recreationally important species. He is always looking for more tissue samples from across the range, so if you catch a Flathead, take a tissue and contact Calvin! He is also a professional/semi-professional musician and can play an abundance of instruments Maybe we can get the band back together and if we do we totally need more cowbell!
Email: calvin.whitney@southeastern.edu
Former Graduate Students and Postdocs
Camden Oathout, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2024 (Research Tech, Southeastern LA University)
Allison Deloache, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2024 (PhD Program, Oklahoma State University)
Gaelyn Gros, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2024 (U. S. EPA, Pensacola, FL)
Chi Jing Leow, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2023 (Bioinformatics Tech, Boston University)
Thomas Dodson, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2023 (PhD student, Texas AM University)
Soren Johnson, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2022 (PhD student, Univ. Missouri, St. Louis)
Andrew Sherman, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2022 (Lab tech, Univ. of Washington)
Kearstin Findley, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2020 (PhD student, Univ. Arkansas)
Sarah Ward, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2020 (U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
Laurel Nave-Powers, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2020 (PhD student, Univ. Washington)
Megan Ryba, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2020 (Field Technician, Illinois Natural History Survey)
Aaron Krolow, MS, Southeastern Louisiana University, 2019 (PhD student, Southern Illinois Univ)
Jerry Kattawar III, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2019 (Medical Field)
Anna Gruszkiewicz, MS, Southeastern Louisiana University, 2018 (on the job/PhD program market)
Dave Cooper Campbell, MS, Southeastern Louisiana University, 2017 (PhD student, Tulane Univ)
Chantal Elyse Parker, MS, Southeastern Louisiana University, 2017 (Postdoc, Univ. Chicago)
Courtney Weyand, MS, Southeastern Louisiana University, 2017 (PhD student, Auburn Univ)
Diego Elias, MS, Southeastern Louisiana University, 2016 (PhD, LSU, now Postdoc Field Museum)
Kimberly Foster, MS, Southeastern Louisiana University, 2016 (Eurofin Genomics)
Savannah Michaelsen Lewis, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2015 (NOAA Pacific Islands Regional Office)
Luke Bower, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2013 (Assistant Professor/Co-op Fishes Unit, Clemson Univ)
Marisa Stachowski, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2013 (PhD student, Loyola Univ)
Elizabeth Marchio, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2012 (Researcher, COSI Columbus)
David Camak, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2012 (Postdoc, Southeastern LA Univ)
Malorie Hayes, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2013 (Instructor, Southern Union Community College)
Carys Kenway Lynch, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2011 (Assistant Director, Quality Assurance, Tulane)
Aaron Geheber, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2011 (Associate Prof, Univ. Central Missouri)
Caleb McMahan, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2011 (Collection Manager Field Museum)
Lisa Cordes Landry, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2011 (Biological Equipment Sales)
Devin Bloom, MS Southeastern Louisiana University, 2007 (Associate Professor, Western Michigan Univ)
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Tyler Coleman (https://www.southeastern.edu/department-of-biological-sciences/programs/lakemaurepas/team/)
Dr Alex Mott (https://www.southeastern.edu/department-of-biological-sciences/programs/lakemaurepas/team/_
Dr. David Camak (https://www.southeastern.edu/department-of-biological-sciences/programs/lakemaurepas/team/)
Dr. Mollie Cashner, Associate Professor, Austin Peay State University
Dr. Brian Bourke, Research Associate, Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit (WRBU)