Graduate students in the Bird Division are enrolled in the Department of Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology masters or Ph.D. programs. They may affiliate with the Division at any time,
and usually do so because their major advisor is one of the curators. The Division provides them with
resources such as computer access, office space, and expertise. They conduct a wide variety of
research on birds, making use of the extensive bird library, the specimen collection, the Laboratory of
Molecular Systematics (Mindell Lab), the E.S. George Reserve, the University of Michigan
Biological Station, and other field sites.
- Current Students
- Elen ONeal
- (B.A. Boston University)
Elen is interested in behavioral ecology, evolution, and molecular systematics.
- Joseph W. Brown
- (M.Sc. Queen's University)
Joseph is researching interordinal avian phylogenetics.
- Recent Alumni
- Sal Cerchio
- (B.S. Tufts University, M.S. Moss Landing Marine Laboratory)
- Sal studies cultural change in the vocal communication of humpback whales. He is interested in behavioral bioacoustics,
the evolution of mating systems, and acoustic mating displays.
- Beth Hahn
- Beth has a fellowship with the U.S. Forest Service in Missoula, MT. (B.A. Boston University) Beth is researching behavior and conservation in songbirds.
- Mallika Krishnan
- Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Michigan
- David Lahti
- (B.S. Gordon College, PhD Whitefield Institute Oxford, U.K.)
- David is interested in behavioral ecology and evolution. He is studying the response to brood parasitism in parental and introduced populations of the African Village Weaver.
Heather Lerner
- Heather is a Postdoctoral researcher with the Smithsonian Institution working on phylogeny of Hawaiian songbirds. (B.S. Bryn Mawr College) Heather is interested in avian phylogeography.
- Alec Lindsay
- Assistant Professor, Northern Michigan University
- Joshua Rest
- (B.S. Drake University)
- Joshua is researching evolution of reverse transcriptase and retroids, both within and outside Aves.
- Tamaki Yuri
- Research Fellow, Smithsonian Institute
A complete list of past PhD students is available.
