People Connected to the Hibbett Lab
Former lab denizons
Post-doctoral fellow
Brandon Matheny (postdoc 2003-'08)
Brandon worked as a post-doc in the Hibbett lab, primarily acquiring and analyzing data for the Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life projects (AFTOL1 and AFTOL2). These results cast new light on evolutionary relationships of fungi, including mushroom-forming fungi. Brandon is now pursuing research in mushroom systematics and evolution of Agaricales and mycorrhizal fungi as an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Read more about Brandon's work
Graduate students
Zheng Wang (Ph.D. '06)
Zheng Wang received a Masters degree in 1997 from the Systematic Mycology and Lichenology Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, under the direction of Wen-Ying Zhuang, and joined our lab in 2000.
He completed his Ph.D. in Jan. 2006 (the first Ph.D. granted in our lab!) and left for a post-Doctoral Fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. John Logsdon, University of Iowa.
Greta Goranova
(BA '02, MA '03)
Greta received a BA from Clark University in 2002 and stayed on for a Masters degree, which she received in 2003. Her thesis concerned phylogenetic relationships of the polyphyletic corticioid genus Dendrothele. After Clark, Greta went on to a PhD program at the University of Louisiana.
Visiting students, scholars and teachers
Brian Dempsey
(2003-'06)
Visiting teacher Brian Dempsey is a biology teacher at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School. He has a long-standing connection with the Hibbett lab, having participated in our 2003 summer workshop for high school biology teachers. More recently, Brian has collaborated with us in connection with the NSF-supported Boletales project. Through this collaboration, we have developed a module for Brian's AP biology class on the monotrope symbiosis (see the Outreach pages). In 2006, Brian joined our lab on a Research Experiences for Teachers supplement to the Boletales project.
Thirovoth Kottuvetta Arun Kumar
(2006)
Arun was an AFTOL-supported visiting student scholar from the laboratory of Dr. P. Manimohan at the University of Calicut, Kerala, India. Prior to coming to our lab, he was a visitor in Dave McLaughlin's lab at the University of Minnesota. Arun's work focused on Auriculoscypha, an insect symbiont in the Septobasidiales (Pucciniomycotina). In Dave McLaughlin's lab, Arun studied ultrastructure of Auriculoscypha, and with us he performed molecular phylogenetic studies.
Jasmin Gossman (2005-06)
Jasmin was an AFTOL-supported visiting student scholar from the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Meike Piepenbring at the University of Frankfurt. While in our lab, Jasmin focused on Ustilaginomycotina and helped with other aspects of the AFTOL project.
Henrik Nilsson
(2004)
Henrik was a visiting student scholar from the Botanical Institute, of Göteborg University, Göteborg, Sweden (advisors, Dr. Nils Hallenberg and Dr. Karl-Henrik Larsson). At Clark, Henrik was supported by the "Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life" project. He was a key developer of mor. He also pursued evolutionary and ecological studies in Cantharellales.
Tobias Frøslev (2004)
Tobias was a visiting graduate student from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark (advisor, Dr. Thomas Læssøe). Tobias worked with us on molecular systematics of Phlegmacium (Cortinariaceae). He was supported by the Assembling the Fungal Tree of Life Project.
Philomena Bodensteiner
(2003-04)
Philomena Bodensteiner was an AFTOL-supported visiting graduate student from Prof. Dr. Reinhard Agerer's group in Munich, Germany. She worked with us on molecular systematics of cyphelloid homobasidomycetes.
Zai-Wei Ge (2003-04)
Zai-Wei was a visiting graduate student from the Botanical Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China (advisor, Dr. Zhu-Liang Yang). Zai-Wei was supported by the AFTOL project. His project concerned systematics of Lepiotaceae of Asia and other basidiomycetes.
Young-Woon Lim (2001)
Sheng-Hua Wu (2000-01)
Dr. Sheng-Hua Wu worked with us on molecular systematics of Aleurodiscus s.lat. He is a researcher in the Division of Botany, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan.
Undergraduates
Brandon Gaytán (2007)
Rebecca Louzan (2007)
Pete Stein (2007)
Kelly Hallstrom (2007)
Kelly studied evolution of high-affinity nitrate transporter genes (nrt2) in basidiomycetes and ascomycetes, with a focus on Laccaria, a group of ectomycorrhizal mushrooms. She was supported on a REU supplement to the AFTOL project (see Current Research) and has also done research for academic credit. Kelly's research was performed in collaboration with Jason Slot.
Ryan Twomey (2005-06)
mor is an ongoing project in our lab that concerns automated phylogenetic taxonomy of homobasidiomycetes. mor has been developed by a series of undergraduates and graduate students, most of whom have been supported by the AFTOL project.
In 2005-2006, development of mor was handled by Ryan Twomey, who majored in computer science and graduated in May 2006.
Janine Costanzo (2005)
Janine was a biology and computer science major who worked on several bioinformatics projects. She was part of the mor team and developed a Perl script package that analyzes ITS sequences of basidiomycetes from GenBank.
Janine also created the Clark Fungal Database. After graduating in 2005, she moved to the Bay Area in California to do web design and informatics in the private sector.
Judson Curtis (2004-06)
Judd joined our lab in June 2004 as an undergraduate research assistant, and worked with us until he graduated in May 2006.
Judd was an outstanding addition to our lab as he helped us collect molecular data for the AFTOL project.
Mario Fonseca and Marc Snyder (2004-05)
mor is an ongoing project in our lab that concerns automated phylogenetic taxonomy of homobasidiomycetes. mor has been developed by a series of undergraduates and graduate students, most of whom have been supported by the AFTOL project.
Mario Fonseca, shown in the foreground, right, in June 2005 and Marc Snyder, background, brought their skills as computer science majors to this project.
Moran Shonfeld (2003)
Moran, a former Math/CS undergraduate, developed the prototype Python script for mor.
Danielle Stehlik (2003)
Holly Arthur (2002-03)
Brooke Barbera (2000-01)
Amanda Little (2000-01)
Marta Parzych (1999-00)