Pics and snippets of the latest goings-on, featuring a very proud advisor.
January 2026Massachusetts received some very cold, wintry weather this month -- absolutely perfect for our research!
Akshiti, João, Serina, and Maria attended the Society of Integrative & Comparative Biology Annual Meeting in Portland, OR! Serina gave her first talk detailing the transcriptomic responses of juncos in the cold, Akshiti and João gave poster presentations, and Maria gave two talks! Akshiti was also awarded a Grant-in-Aid of Research from SICB, as well as a Pre-dissertation Grant from the UMass Amherst Graduate College to support her research! |
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August 2025João arrived from Brazil to join the lab as a PhD student and Wentao returned to us as a Masters student!
Paul, Akshiti, Wentao, João, and Maria attended the American Ornithological Society Annual Meeting in St. Louis! Maria received the Ned K. Johnson Early Investigator Award, Paul presented his latest work on Lazuli Buntings, and Akshiti gave her first poster presentation! 
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May 2025Already time for us to say goodbye to Phred -- but we're absolutely ecstatic for him to be starting his lab at the University of Alaska Fairbanks this summer! (Check out Phred's UAF page)
January 2025Serina, Akshiti, and Maria attended the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting in Atlanta. Serina killed her first poster presentation!
September 2024 |
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Akshiti arrived from India and joins the lab as a new PhD student! Wentao also joins us this month as a technician.
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August 2024Yousuf completed his summer research fellowship (William Lee Science Impact Program) with a poster presentation at the UMass Undergraduate Research Symposium! Yousuf spent the summer learning Western blotting techniques and performing enzyme assays to explore mechanisms of non-shivering thermogenesis in juncos.
July 2024We couldn't be happier for Cory, who is off to Northern Michigan University to start his own lab! (Cory's website)
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May 2024Congrats to Kay, Julianna, and Stephan on their graduation! Can't wait to see what these great students do next!
April 2024Stephan presented the results of his senior research at the UMass Undergraduate Research Conference! Stephan spent the year molecularly sexing Hudsonian Godwit chick samples. Godwits are not sexually dimorphic as chicks, but females grow to be larger than males as adults. With these data, he was able to ask whether males and females grow and survive at different rates throughout their early life. These data will be included in a manuscript that graduate student, Feipeng Huang, is working on as part of his dissertation work in the Senner lab.
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January 2024
We had a blast at the symposium we (Alex Gerson, Cory, and Maria) organized at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting in Seattle! Thanks to SICB and the NSF for funding a great slate of talks and posters!
November 2023Nate, Maria, and her parents shared Thanksgiving with international graduate students!
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September 2023Serina joined the lab as the first graduate student!
August 2023Maria attended the American Ornithological Society Meeting in London, Ontario and presented the lab's latest work.
June 2023Maria attended the Evolution meeting in Albuquerque where she presented our latest findings about the genetic mechanisms of thermogenic flexibility in juncos. She also met up with Paul Dougherty, who has been awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology! Paul will join the lab in January 2024 and will be co-advised by Nathan Senner.
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April 2023Lab supplies are rolling in and Cory is super excited to start training students! Documentation of the first ever DNA extraction for the lab: Stephan is using samples we collected on campus from Juncos earlier this year. Lab work is always this fun with Cory!
Febuary 2023
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Cory joins the lab as a post-doc and immediately gets to work ordering lab equipment and supplies! Four new undergrads -- Becca, Julianna, Stephan, and Suhani -- join the lab, too!
September 2022
The lab is open! And Kay is ready to start as the first lab member!