School of Humanities and Sciences
Showing 1-83 of 83 Results
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Christopher Anderson
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2016
BioMy research focuses on the use of satellite remote sensing technology to characterize multi-scale patterns of terrestrial biodiversity. I am interested in understanding how ecosystem structure and function changes for multiple taxonomic groups as a result of anthropogenic forces. These forces include land use change, climate change, establishing protected areas, the development of novel ecosystems, and assisted migration.
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Daniel Berenson
MD Student, expected graduation Spring 2021
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2015
MSTP StudentBioI am an MD/PhD student through the Medical Scientist Training Program. I completed my PhD in Biology in Jan Skotheim's lab for studies on cell cycle and cell size regulation, and now am completing medical school.
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Paul Bump
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Summer 2016
BioPaul Bump is an explorer of the small and squishy. His research in strange, enigmatic, marine invertebrates hopes to unlock secrets around basic biological processes and provide novel perspectives to advance fundamental cell biology research. He currently studies how an organism can build two wildly different bodies during its life while having access to the same genetic information. While puzzling, the process of indirect development, with distinct larval and adult body plans, is the most common developmental strategy in many animals. His research involves studying the metamorphosis of Schizocardium californicum, an indirect developing hemichordate worm, which transforms from a small swimming planktonic balloon into a burrowing, muscular worm in a 24-48 hour time period.
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Benjamin Burford
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2015
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsFor my PhD research, I utilize in situ footage, comparative respirometry, scientific surveys, animal-borne data loggers, and oceanographic data to understand the competitive ability of ecologically-similar social squid and fish in an environmental context.
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Rachel Crane
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2015
BioRachel is interested in molluscan shell form. Animals’ shells defend them from a variety of environmental dangers and predatory attacks, including a multitude of low-magnitude, repeated stresses, which could cumulatively cause lethal fatigue damage. She studies how shell features—from composition and microstructure to overall morphology—contribute to fatigue resistance. By developing new mechanical techniques to test shell fatigue resistance, she hopes to answer questions about the evolution of shell shape and the ecological interactions between hard-shelled molluscs, their predators, and the environment.
Rachel received her B.A. in Biology from Swarthmore College where she worked with Rachel Merz studying worm burrowing and distribution in the muddy intertidal zone. She then worked as the lab manager in Sheila Patek’s lab at Duke University examining the behavioral strategies that mantis shrimp use when hammering open hard-shelled prey -
William Taylor Gough
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2017
BioThe margin between life and death is defined by an animal’s ability to navigate its environment and find food. For his PhD thesis work, Will Gough has been using biologging tags to study how locomotion and feeding kinematics scale with body size up to and including whales - the largest animals that have ever lived. Insights from this work will help us understand how these species move within and reacts to their local environment and give us a more complete picture of their physiology and energetic demands. As we move forward into the Anthropocene, these answers could help us develop more robust science-based policy to protect and conserve our ocean ecosystem.
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Richard Grewelle
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2016
BioRichard Grewelle is a current PhD student motivated to understand ecological and evolutionary underpinnings of wildlife disease systems. Prior research areas involve bioinformatics, phylogenetics, and disease ecology. Although with previous experience in terrestrial diseases, including Y. pestis (plague), Richard pursues marine disease ecology due to the lack of knowledge surrounding systems we hardly encounter. Marine diseases present significant challenges to not only biologists; they may devastate fragile ecosystems supporting fisheries or providing ecological services. Richard works to bridge the gap between theoretical and empirical studies, employing population and genetic data to inform theoretical models of disease transmission. Despite the economic significance of this research, conservation of marine species and basic biological understanding are at its heart.
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Avery Hill
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2017
BioI am a PhD student in the lab of Prof. Chris Field. My academic interests include vegetation biogeography and spatial ecology, particularly in the context of the Anthropocene. During my B.S. at Cornell University I studied general biology and botany, and worked in the plant systematics lab of Prof. Kevin Nixon. Most of my work has focused on the vegetation of the Sierra Nevada, and I know the area well due to both field work and recreation. My extracurricular interests include literature, historical materialism, iOS app development, and the playing of various stringed instruments.
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Elora H. López
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2015
BioElora López is a Ph.D. candidate in Biology at Stanford University. She uses genomics to address questions about the ecology, evolution, and conservation of marine life. Her research spans a wide range of topics, including coral bleaching recovery in American Samoa, somatic mutations in very long-lived organisms, and the effects of nuclear radiation on wildlife at Bikini Atoll, a former nuclear testing site in the Marshall Islands.
López's first research expedition to Bikini Atoll was featured on the PBS documentary series Big Pacific in June 2017. Her research projects have also been featured in USA Today, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and Hakai Magazine.
López is a National Geographic Early Career Explorer, an Explorers Club Rolex Explorer, a Stanford Graduate Fellow in Science & Engineering, and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow. -
Nicole Nova
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2016
BioNicole is a graduate student co-advised by Dr. Erin Mordecai and Dr. Dmitri Petrov in the Department of Biology at Stanford University. She received her undergraduate and graduate training in dental surgery at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and earned a M.S. in Statistics at Stanford University. Nicole has previously worked on (1) mathematical modeling of cancer evolution at Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, and on (2) eco-evolutionary dynamics of infectious diseases at Duke University. Nicole is generally interested in ecology, evolution, statistics, data science, mathematical biology, infectious disease, population genetics, comparative genomics, public health and conservation.
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William Oestreich
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2017
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research focuses on the behavior of highly-mobile (and often marine) species. This work includes study of animal behavior on individual and population scales, as well as the environmental drivers of these behaviors. I am particularly interested in human-wildlife interactions resulting from highly-mobile animal behavior and dynamic management strategies tailored to mediate these interactions.
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Jeffrey Smith
Ph.D. Student in Biology, admitted Autumn 2015
Other Tech - Graduate, Woods Research Natural Capital ProjectBioI am a currently a fourth year PhD candidate in the Biology Department at Stanford University, working both with the Stanford Center for Conservation Biology and the Natural Capital Project on understanding the impacts of human land use on biodiversity. My empirical work focuses principally on insect biodiversity in southern Costa Rica. In addition to this field work, I employ a variety of spatial modelling techniques to extrapolate local findings to regional and global patterns of diversity.
Prior to starting at Stanford, I obtained a Masters of Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where I worked with Dr. Os Schmitz to determine how New England old-field arthropod food webs varied along a suburban-forest gradient. I received my Bachelor of Science (in Ecology and Environmental Science) from the University of Delaware. While there I researched biological control of invasive weeds and restoration ecology with Dr. Judy Hough-Goldstein.
