***The Light Lab is seeking graduate students for Fall 2019. If you would like to join the Light Lab, please contact Jessica at jlight2@tamu.edu

Research in the Light lab is focused broadly in evolutionary biology with a focus on systematics, population genetics, and coevolutionary associations between distantly related organisms, particularly mammals and their parasites. In general, our research relies on field work and Museum specimens, and we use molecular and morphological data from recently collected and ancient specimens to help elucidate broad evolutionary processes operating in distantly related taxa. Please see the Projects and Publications page for more examples of ongoing research in the Light lab.

Forthcoming: Link to list of popular press articles documenting the importance of collections (as published in the Journal of Mammalogy)

News!
News Archive

June 2018

• Oona South Africa louse manuscript is provisionally accepted at Systematic Entomology! Congratulations Oona!
• It's summer meeting time! Here are some hashtags to follow on twitter: #ASPCancun #ASMWildcat #ICP6Brno
  
• Got some manuscripts out in print! Check them out here (poxvirus) and here (bat phylogeography)

May 2018

• The lab rocked an escape room, successfully getting out in under an hour. What fun!
• Jessica just participated in #SkypeAScientist and had a GREAT time! So much fun
• Congratulations to Bridgett! She successfully defended her thesis research this week!
• Hodo et al. manuscript on a new poxvirus in Texas rodents is coming out soon. Popular press is amplifying the research. Check it out at Live Science and Fox News. And here's the CDC media release
• Just found out that Whitney has received a Tom Slick Student Development Grant. This will help her travel to the annual meeting of the American Society of Parasitologists. Congrats, Whitney!
• Lots of congratulations this month! Many great students graduated, including Mary and Celeste (see the "People" page.
• Congratulations to Leila! She received funding from the American Society of Mammalogists via a Grants-in-Aid award. Whoo-hoo!
• Congratulations to lab alumnus Caitlin Nessner Respess. She has been promoted to Project Coordinator, Lead at her job at the Baylor College of Medicine. Congrats, Caitlin!

Contact the Light Lab
Texas A&M University
Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences
Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Mailing address: 534 John Kimbrough Blvd., TAMU 2258; College Station, TX 77843
JEL Office: 268 Wildlife, Fisheries and Ecological Sciences (Building 1537). 979-458-4357

This website was last updated 14 June 2018