Current and Former Stillman Laboratory Members
| Principal Investigator: Dr. Jonathon Stillman | |
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Associate Professor of Biology Adjunct Assistant Professor of Integrative Biology voice: (415) 338-3790 photo credit: Marine Forte |
| Postdoctoral Researchers | |
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Dr. Nathan Miller (namiller_at_sfsu.edu) I I am an environmental physiologist interested in understanding phenotypic plasticity, its role in allowing organisms to respond to environmental stress, and how changes in plasticity during ontogeny may influence stress tolerance. I am currently working on two projects at the Romberg Tiburon Center. In one, Adam Paganini and I are studying the ontogenetic changes in thermal tolerance that occur in several species of porcelain crab (Petrolisthes) with special attention to changes in thermal tolerance that correspond to changes in habitat use and life-history stage (intertidal adults versus pelagic larvae). This work combines ecology and physiology (metabolic and growth rate measurements, enzyme assays), to identify mechanisms of thermal tolerance and consequences of thermal tolerance plasticity. In the second, I am working to understanding the physiological responses of an invasive clam, Potamocorbula amurensis, to environmental changes in salnity, temperature, and food availability across sites and seasons within the northern San Francisco Estuary. For more about Nate: http://www.nate-miller.org |
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Dr. Scott Fay (scott.a.fay |at| gmail |dot| com) I focus my research on food web ecology, especially in examining links between microbes and higher trophic levels. In the Stillman Lab I'm applying my expertise in molecular ecology to address how the metabolic efficiency of algal grazers, aquatic insects in California Coast Range streams, will be affected by changing climate. I'm engaged in two projects at UC Berkeley, one on Insect Ecophysiology, and one on king crab responses to climate change. In both projects, we'll be using RNA-seq to assess physiological reponses to environmental change, and to develop a suite of molecular biomarkers that can be used in larger population studies of response to climate change. For more about Scott: |
| Graduate Students | |
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Eric Armstrong (armstrong@berkeley.edu) I am interested in biological questions related to organism-environment interactions and scale - how do a species' physiological tolerances influence its performance and distribution and what effect do these variations have on whole ecosystem features and processes? I am excited by Tridacnid clams, among other things. |
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Rachel Dorfman (racheld@mail.sfsu.edu) Prior to joining the Stillman Lab I worked in a freshwater ecology lab at the University of Georgia as an undergraduate, and later studied coastal environmental law and policy at the University of San Diego. I am currently working on projects that examine how climate change and nutrient availability affect the physiology and functional genomics of phytoplankton. I work mostly with calcifying marine phytoplankton known as coccolithophores, and am addressing the following questions: How will future increases in ocean temperature and CO2 affect the transcriptome of the world’s most abundant coccolithophore, Emiliania huxleyi ? How will different coccolithophore species respond to changes in ocean CO2 and shifts in the marine nitrogen cycle? Some other projects that I have worked on include: The effect of nutrient additions on phytoplankton growth and community composition in the Amazon River Basin (project with Edward Carpenter’s Lab) Heat shock protein (HSP) gene expression in two species of juvenile porcelain crabs (with REU student Carley Turner) |
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Haydee Medina (hmed@sfsu.edu) I am studying how structural stability of enzyme lactate dehydrogenase is affected by exercise and physiological hypoxia in porcelain crabs. |
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Adam Paganini (paganini@mail.sfsu.edu) I spent a year working on understanding how the metabolism and metabolic enzymes of the invasive Asian clam Corbula amurensis responds to environmental salinity. I have worked on a project involving the thermal physiology of porcelain crab larvae, specifically examining how thermal stress brought on by climate change will alter their metabolic and energetic demands at different life history stages. Now I am working on understanding the synergistic effects of thermal and pH variation on adult porcelain crab metabolic physiology, thermal tolerance, and gene expression. For more about me visit: www.laplebe.com or here |
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Tessa Page (tpage@sfsu.edu) I am a new MS student in the Stillman lab and am having a great time participating in projects involving porcelain crab responses to temperature and pH, as well as the biology of spider crab embryos and larvae. For more about Tessa: http://tessampage.weebly.com/ |
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Elize Papineau (papineau@sfsu.edu) I'm a new member of the Stillman Lab just beginning work on an MS. I am interested in how various factors of climate change will impact organisms at the biochemical level. Right now I am working on a small project with Daphnia pulex while I feel out what I would to do for my thesis. For more about me, see here: http://epapineau.weebly.com |
Research Technician |
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Chelsea Chen. (cc_sky_cx@hotmail.com) I finished my MS research on the metabolic responses of Daphnia to the interactive effects of thermal and salinity variation. Now I am working on projects involved with understanding the biological responses of Potamocorbula amurensis to environmental change, and am conducting laboratory acclimation studies as well as performing biochemical and physiological assays on clam tissues. I am also workign on expression, purification and characterization of recombinant crab LDH enzymes. |
| Undergraduate Students | |
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Cecilia Tran I am an undergraduate at UC Berkeley helping with RNA extractions and RNA seq library construction in insects and crabs |
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Joseph Gapuz I am an undergraduate at UC Berkeley and am participating in Aquatic Insect Ecophysiology projects. I like to build stuff - like these temperature controllers! |
| Other Current Lab Members | |
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Mudasir Andrabi I am a professor at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST) in India, and am on Sabbatical in the Stillman lab for one year to learn about functional genomic assyas. I am working on king crab RNA-seq. |
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Vincent Leignel I am a professor at Le Mans University and am on Sabbatical in the Stillman lab for the first part of 2013. I am interested in heat shock proteins in native and invasive populations of the green crab, Carcinus maenas. In the Stillman lab, I am working on RNA-seq of crab samples. |
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Dian Li I am a MS student in statistics at SFSU and am working in the Stillman lab to learn about RNA-seq bioinformatics |
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Shima Maddah I am a graduate of UCSD and am assisting on a project to analyze videos of crab embryos during development. (see a video here) while I prepare for entry into veterinary school. I can also catch spiny lobster and drink coffee at the same time. |
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Ricky Olivares I am a high school student doing an internship in the Stillman lab during the Spring 2013 semester. I'm helping Eric and Tessa with experiments, including hopefully some respirometry of giant clams. |
| Please visit Anne Todgham's Website for members of her group who are often working in our lab at RTC. | |
| Former Lab Members | |
Graduate students who completed their theses |
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Lina Ceballos, Master's student 2009-2012; MS THESIS: Developmental Effects of Ocean Acidification on Porcelain Crab, Petrolisthes cinctipes. Lina is interested in crustacean biology and environmental studies. Her previous research includes the first report of the reef lobster Enoplometopus antillensis (Lütken 1865) in Colombian Caribbean waters (Ceballos et al. 2005), and a description of its larval stages. Her MS research examined physiological responses to ocean acidification in embryos, larvae and juveniles of the porcelain crab Petrolisthes cinctipes. Presently she is working at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Tiburon. For more about Lina: http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~linaco/ |
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Hayley Carter, Master's student 2009-2012; MS THESIS: Physiological Effects of Ocean Acidification on Early Life History Stages of Porcelain Crab, Petrolisthes cinctipes. Hayley is interested in how marine invertebrate organisms respond to environmental stressors. She enjoys working with intertidal organisms and is fascinated with their adaptations to extreme environmetal conditions. Her thesis examined how porcelain crab early life history stages will respond to future global climate change, including changes in ocean acidification. For more about Hayley: http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~hacarter/ |
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Chelsea Chen, Master's student 2008-2011; MS THESIS: Synergistic Effects of Thermal and Osmotic Stress on Metabolism in Freshwater Zooplankton.  Chen, X., and J.H. Stillman. 2012. Multigenerational analysis of temperature and salinity variability: affects on metabolic rate, generation time, and acute thermal and salinity tolerance in Daphnia pulex. Journal of Thermal Biology. 37(3): 185-194. |
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Andrea Cayenne, Master's student 2008-2010; MS THESIS: Identification of Protein Interactions with Lactate Dehydrogenase in Porcelain Crab Petrolisthes cinctipes
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Eric Galassi, Master's student 2007-2008; MS THESIS: Thermal Influences on Gene Expression in the Intertidal Porcelain Crab, Petrolisthes cinctipes. |
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Kristen Teranishi, Master's student 2004-2006; MS THESIS: Response to Heat Stress in the Porcelain Crab, Petrolisthes cinctipes.
Following her MS research Kris started a PhD program at UCSF in the pharmacogenomics program. After a year, though, she decided to return to home and Hawaii, where she enrolled in the UH Medical School to become a medical doctor. |
Other graduate students who worked in the lab for a while, and their projects: |
Postdoctoral Fellows who have moved on... | |
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Stephane Lefebvre (2008-2011): Currently a research scientist at the J. Craig Venter Institute in San Diego, CA. Stephane's research focuses on the cellular biology and genomics of phytoplankton, and other photosynthetic organisms. In the Stillman lab, Stephane examined physiological and functional genomic responses of coccolithophores and diatoms to simultaneous shifts in dissolved carbon dioxide and nitrogen source (ammonium vs. nitrate) to understand how multiple environmental changes expected in future oceans would impact phytoplankton that play a major role in regulating the Earth's carbon cycle and climate. |
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Pascale Rossignol (2009-2010): Currently a postdoc at Yale Univ. Pascale is interested in plant physiology. In the Stillman laboratory, she participated in projects involving transcriptome responses to thermal acclimation, and sequencing and subcloning LDH genes from porcelain crabs. |
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Mani Tagmount (2005-2009): Currently a research scientist in Chris Vulpe's laboratory at UC Berkeley Mani is a terrific molecular biologist with interests in environmental stress responses. In the Stillman laboratory he worked on functional genomics of porcelain crabs, including our EST project, and variation in gene expression across ecological gradients in temperature. He also worked on cloning LDH genes from porcelain crabs. |
Other Lab Alumni: Undergraduate students: High School interns: |
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