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Principal investigator

 

Kimberly Sheldon

Assistant Professor
ksheldon@utk.edu
Google Scholar Profile

 

 

 

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Postdoctoral Researchers

 

Amanda Wilson Carter

Postdoctoral Researcher
Website
Google Scholar Profile

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Graduate students

 

Maggie Mamantov

PhD Student
mmamanto@utk.edu

Maggie joined the lab in August 2016. She completed her undergraduate degree at Grinnell College in Iowa. In addition to research experiences at the University of Kentucky and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Maggie worked on an independent research project examining population structure of Formica exsectoides, a superconlonial ant species, across its North American range. She has strong interests in invasion biology and how biotic factors affect species ranges. Maggie is also passionate about sharing science with the public and fostering an interest in STEM. Check out her outreach here.

 

Anchal Padukone
PhD Student

Anchal joined the lab in August 2018. She completed her undergraduate degree at Princeton University. Anchal spent a semester at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where she conducted senior thesis research on the influence of microenvironmental factors on the distribution of an insect vector of Chagas disease. After graduating, Anchal worked as a Princeton in Africa Fellow at the Mpala Research Centre in Kenya where she coordinated outreach and citizen science programs, helped manage the centre’s media and publications, and contributed to research on acacia ant community dynamics.

 
 

 
 

Claire Winfrey
PhD Student

Claire joined the lab in August 2017. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. In addition to working with herpetofauna, Claire completed an undergraduate research project examining the role of visual and non-visual cues in damselfly mate recognition (Winfrey & Fincke 2017). 

 

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Undergraduate students

 

Sarah Jayne Brawner

Sarah Jayne joined the lab in August 2017. She is a senior in the Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology at UTK. Sarah Jayne is helping to launch a new direction in the lab — gut microbiome research on dung beetles.

 
 
 

Will Kirkpatrick
Website

Will joined the lab in May 2017. He is a junior in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at UTK. Will worked on a sodium addition experiment and collected data for a manuscript on breeding biology of a tropical bird. He presented on his work at the Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement (EURēCA) and the UTK EEB undergraduate symposium. In 2018, Will received an undergraduate grant to carry out a summer project on behavioral responses of dung beetles to temperature change. Will loves sharks, but he is growing ever more fond of dung beetles!

 

Morgan Flemming

Morgan joined the lab in February 2018. She earned her Associates from Roane State Community College. Morgan has strong interests in conservation and she is assisting with dung beetle physiological research.

 

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Previous Team Members — folks we miss!

Matt McGee

Matt worked in the lab from June-December 2017. He completed his BA at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 2011. Matt worked in a variety of field settings on projects related to prairie restoration and avian ecology before coming to UTK. He helped with trapping in the Smokies, dung beetle breeding in the lab, and a warming experiment in the field. He also first-authored a paper on breeding biology of a rare Ecuadorian bird.

 

Shelby Collins

Shelby was in the lab from January-June 2018. In addition to being in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Shelby was part of the Vols Teach Program, which emphasizes field based experiences and is aimed at training those interested in a career in secondary teaching. Shelby helped with several outreach education efforts in the lab, and she was the Education Coordinator for our summer research program with high school students of the East Band of the Cherokee Indians.

David Edwards

David was a lab member from May 2017-May 2018. David helped with dung beetle breeding experiments and worked on a sodium addition experiment. He also co-authored a manuscript on the breeding biology of a species of bird from Ecuador.

 

Atira Sherrod

Atira was in the lab from September 2016-May 2017. She received her Associate of Science degree from Pellissippi State Technical Community College. She completed her B.S. in Biology at the University of Tennessee in 2016 with a concentration in Microbiology. Atira became particularly interested in ecology and evolutionary biology and took additional undergraduate courses to round out her education while working in the lab. She assisted with dung beetle research and worked on an independent project examining operative temperatures of beetles across seasons.