Interested in joining us?
We're an international group of researchers with a passion for organismal biology. (Lab members speak 11 different languages at last count!) We welcome everyone of all abilities and backgrounds -- no prior experience required. We're also a pretty positive group and you hear a lot of laughter coming from our lab. Get in touch with Maria, if you'd like to learn more!
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Maria Stager, PhD (PI)Maria was born and raised in the Finger Lakes of central NY. She attended Cornell University and spent a semester studying in Italy. After college, she stumbled into bird research -- working as a research assistant for projects in Argentina, Australia, and the Galapagos, among other places. This eventually led to grad school. Maria did her graduate work with Zac Cheviron, first as a Master's student at U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and then as a PhD student at U. Montana. She then postdoced at U. South Carolina and later with Scott Taylor at CU Boulder under an NSF PRFB. Maria joined the faculty at UMass Amherst as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2022. She feels extremely fortunate to be working with such a wonderful group of people! She spends her free time with her dog, Oliver.
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Paul Dougherty, PhD (Postdoc)Paul joined the lab as an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology in Jan 2024. Before joining us, Paul received his B.A. from Colby College and completed his PhD at the University of Wyoming where he studied molt-migration and hybridization patterns in Passerina buntings. Paul is continuing this work at UMass and is deploying geolocators on Lazuli Buntings to track migration patterns, as well as performing acclimation experiments to investigate both the environmental cues and the underlying expression patterns that regulate molt in these birds. He is co-mentored by Nathan Senner.
Paul's website |
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Akshiti Bhat (PhD Student)Akshiti is a graduate student in the Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Program. She joined the lab in August 2024 after completing both her B.S. and M.S. at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in 2023. Akshiti has experience studying social networks in mixed species flocks of the Himalayas and is now applying those skills to look at interactions between an individual's physiology and social foraging behavior in our local winter flocks. She is eager to learn every technique so she can make use of them in her dissertation work. Akshiti holds a Fox Fellowship from the College of Natural Sciences to support her graduate research.
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João Climaco (PhD Student)João is a graduate student in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Program. He is joining the lab in Fall 2025, having just finished his Masters at the Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz in Brazil. For his Masters, he studied the ecophysiology and evolution of lizards in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Prior to that, he completed his BS at São Paulo State University, where he helped establish cell culture in cavefish. João's dissertation work will focus on physiology and evolution of juncos but we are excited for him to bring a host of knowledge about non-avian reptiles to the lab!
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Serina Suzuki (PhD Student)Serina is a graduate student in the Organismic & Evolutionary Biology Program. She was awarded an inaugural Quad Fellowship from the federal government to support her graduate research. Serina completed her undergraduate work at Hokkaido University in Japan where she studied epigenetic mechanisms of avian song learning. She later worked with folks at Nagoya University on breeding and movement patterns of Black-tailed Gulls. Serina is interested in migratory decision making and plans to make use of genomic and transcriptomic techniques in her dissertation work. She is currently perfecting the use of immunohistochemistry techniques in junco brains, but she has a particular fondness for Blue Jays. She's also our resident artist, helping to beautify the lab with her artwork.
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Wentao Yang (Masters Student)Wentao is a graduate student in the OEB program. He completed his BS at UC Davis in 2023 and spent the next year working on various field projects as a technician, including work with seabirds, shorebirds, and songbirds, which took him all over the country from Alaska to South Carolina! He joined the lab in August 2024 as a tech for our project with mixed-species winter flocks, before deciding to stay for a Masters, beginning Fall 2025. To add to his top-notch bird banding and handling skills, as well as his tech savvy, Wentao is now learning molecular and physiological techniques. Wentao is also a passionate birder -- he hosts a birding podcast in Mandarin and helped found Birdwatching Clubs both in China and at UC Davis -- and an excellent photographer -- with a photo recently featured in Living Bird.
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Violet WuViolet is a research technician that joined the lab in Fall 2025. She completed her BS at UC Davis in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology in 2023 and then her Masters at the University of New England in 2025. For her Masters research, Violet studied the movement and migration patterns of Bobolinks breeding in the northeast using satellite tags and geolocators. She spent much of the fall running Wildcat Hills Banding Station in Nebraska and is now employing her bird banding/handling expertise to assist our lab on several projects. Violet is also a gifted artist, photographer, and content creator.
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Yousuf Al Attar (Undergraduate Researcher)Yousuf is a Biochemistry & Molecular Biology major ('26) in the Honors College. Yousuf joined the lab in Fall 2023. He is quickly perfecting his wet lab skills and recently started genotyping ~300 junco samples to quantify allelic variation across their range. But he's too darn efficient and rapidly demolishes every task before him so he already finished that project! He also worked at the Translation Center on campus and is fluent in Arabic. It's absolutely impossible to encounter Yousuf in the lab without a smile on his face. Yousuf was awarded a Lee SIP scholarship to continue his research in the lab during Summer 2024 and presented his work at the Summer REU Poster Symposium!
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Jason Gehring (Undergraduate Researcher)Jason is Biology major ('26) in the Honors College who joined the lab in Fall 2024. Jason is learning both field and lab techniques. For his senior thesis, Jason is interested in understanding whether winter foraging flocks are composed of related individuals. To that end, he is reconstructing social foraging relationships for chickadees visiting our RFID feeder array and using microsatellites to assess genetic relationships among these same individuals. Jason has additionally spent his past two summers in Alaska working trail crew and fighting wild fires. After he graduates, Jason hopes to pursue graduate school in Biology, perhaps with a focus on bioacoustics.
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Charles Lock (Undergraduate Researcher)Charles is a junior Biology major ('27) that joined the lab in Spring 2025 after taking Maria's Physiology course. Charles opted to perfect their wet lab techniques with a project focused on thermal receptor gene expression throughout the junco brain. With Serina's guidance, Charles has learned to cryosection brains, extract RNA, and perform cDNA synthesis and qPCR. Charles is considering a career in research after graduation.
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Will Scheffel (Undergraduate Researcher)Will is a senior Biology major ('26) that joined the lab in Spring 2025 after taking Maria's Physiology course. Will has participated in several different projects in the lab because he's great at everything we throw at him: from field work and respirometry to cryosectioning, histology, and quantitative dissections. Currently, he is learning to section brains to isolate the hypothalamus and other regions that might be important for responding to environmental cues, building on his previous work quantifying structural changes that occur in the liver in response to cold acclimation. Will is also an EMT and is planning to go to medical school after he graduates, where he hopes to specialize in orthopedics.
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Matt Santos (Undergraduate Researcher)Matt is a junior Biology major ('27) that joined the lab in Spring 2025 after taking Maria's Physiology course. He stood out in class because of his positive attitude and incessant smile during lecture -- both characters that he brings to the lab, too. Matt has participated in several different projects in the lab, including aging citizen-science photo observations of Lazuli Buntings and field work in Arizona. More recently, he's been learning wet lab techniques by performing DNA extractions of wintering juncos. Matt also works for the Biology Department prepping our teaching labs. He hopes to pursue a career in biotech after he graduates.
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Trisha Truong (Undergraduate Researcher)Trisha is a senior Bio major ('26) in the Honors College that joined the lab in Fall 2024. She is quantifying feather growth bars in Lazuli Buntings to understand the speed and duration of molt to pair with migration tracks for these same birds. She is also assisting in Paul's captive bunting work to understand the cues birds use to molt. Outside of the lab, Trisha is on the executive board for the UMass Amherst Science Olympiad, which is a student-run organization aimed at attracting New England high school students to STEM through an annual science competition. Trisha plans to attend med school after graduation and is busy applying to schools and amassing clinical hours.
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Oliver (lab mascot)Official snuggler since 2016. Endlessly patient. The MOST enthusiastic. Lover of cheese. Bird-curious. Happy to accompany us on long car trips to field sites or yet another walk to campus for forgotten items. Has been known to take out a mist net.
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Lab Alumni
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Phred Benham, PhD (former Research Associate)Phred joined the lab in May '24 with extensive experience in evolutionary biology, physiology, museum science, and bioinformatics. He received his PhD at U. Montana, his M.S. at U. New Mexico, and his B.S. at Louisiana State University. He then postdoced at U.C. Berkeley studying the genomic mechanisms of saltmarsh adaptation in Savannah Sparrows, as well as working to develop genomic resources for species of conservation concern. Phred took the lead on our Junco genoscape project with the Ruegg, Winger, and Mila labs. He is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Phred's website |
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Cory Elowe, PhD (former Postdoc)Cory joined the lab in January 2023 after completing his PhD at UMass Amherst in 2022 with Alex Gerson. His research is focused on seasonal acclimatization in songbirds, specifically physiological changes made in response to temperature and photoperiod. Cory did all the things in the Stager lab and really kept the lab running. He is a co-author on several manuscripts from his time in the lab. Cory is now an Assistant Professor at Northern Michigan University.
Cory's website |
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Kay Denmead (former Undergraduate Researcher)Kay was the first person to join the lab once our doors opened in Fall 2022! Kay helped on a variety of projects in the lab before graduating from the Biology Department in Spring 2024. They are a co-author on a manuscript currently in review. They are now a technician in the Mager lab (Vet and Animal Sciences) and are hoping to pursue graduate school in Developmental Biology.
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Stephan Saint-Juste (former Undergraduate Researcher)Stephan graduated from the Biology Dept in Spring 2024. He joined the lab in Spring 2023. Stephan molecularly sexed hundreds of samples from Hudsonian Godwit chicks in order to quantify sex-specific patterns in growth rate and survival. He presented his research at the Undergraduate Research Conference in April 2024! He is also a co-author on a manuscript currently in review. Stephan is now pursuing a Master's in Bioinformatics.
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Julianna Applegate (former Undergraduate Researcher)Julianna graduated from the Vet and Animal Sciences Dept in Spring 2024. She helped on a variety of projects in the lab, despite her very busy schedule. Julianna is now attending vet school at Tufts and plans to become a large animal vet after she graduates.
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Rebecca Ganley (former Undergraduate Researcher)Becca graduated from the Biology Dept in Spring 2023. She joined the lab in her last semester at UMass -- and we treasured the time that we got with her! She spearheaded the lab's histological work by quantifying muscle properties of juncos acclimated to different temperatures. She is a co-author on a publication resulting from this work. Becca now works as a Research Technician at Strand Therapeutics Inc.
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Jonathan Eckerson (former Technician)Jonathan graduated from UMass in 2020 and has spent the last few years conducting bird research all over the place -- including California, Michigan, and Borneo! He has banded thousands of birds in this short time and joins the lab with oodles of experience. He led the charge on our NSF grant exploring behavior and physiology of mixed-species winter flocks with the Shizuka Lab. He is now trying his hand as a programmer.
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Matthew Eckerson (former Technician)Matthew graduated from UMass in 2023. He then spent the summer in Beluga, Alaska working on Hudsonian Godwits with the Senner lab. Together with Jonathan, Matthew led the charge implementing RFID feeders to explores behavior and physiology of mixed-species winter flocks as part of our NSF grant with the Shizuka Lab. Matthew is now working for the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
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Suhani Manish Hingar (former Undergraduate Researcher)Suhani ('25) joined the lab as a Freshman in Spring 2023. She worked on our feather project quantifying insulative properties of junco feathers. She also dabbled in molecular work. Suhani is now an undergraduate researcher in the UMass Sleep Monitoring Lab where she is pursuing her interests in neuroscience and exploring partnerships between biology and industry.
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Olivia Rizzo (former Undergraduate Researcher)Olivia ('25) is double majoring in Vet and Animal Sciences and Biochemistry. She joined the lab as a Lee SIP Scholar in summer 2023 and got experience doing all sorts of lab work. Olivia presented this work at the UMass Summer REU Poster Symposium. She especially liked participating in the local Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS) banding program. As a double major, Olivia's schedule is jam-packed with coursework and she's also an RA for one of the dorms on campus.
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Q Salako (former Undergraduate Researcher)Q is a senior Biology major who took Intro Physiology with Maria in Spring '23. Q joined the lab in Fall 2023 to gain experience doing research. He is trying his hand at several things in the lab, including molecular work and histology. After he graduates, Q hopes to purse a Master's in Biology before applying to Medical School.
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Sanya Thakur (former Undergraduate Researcher)Sanya ('26) is a Math major with a concentration in Statistics and Data Science. Sanya joined the lab as a Lee SIP Scholar in summer 2023 and wowed us with her programming and analytical skills! She analyzed the Purple Martin dataset that Kay and Julianna helped collect, which culminated in a poster presentation at UMass Summer REU Poster Symposium.
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