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 Dr. Carol Vleck

My research combines elements of lab and fieldwork, often in extreme environments from the deserts of Arizona to the ice fields of Antarctica. In the lab we use radioimmunoassays of steroid and peptide hormones from birds sampled in the field to examine hormonal control of behaviors. We use molecular techniques for determining length of telomeres, telomerase activity and oxidative damage to DNA in tissue samples collected at sites throughout the western hemisphere. We study energetics and thermal effects using oxygen analyzers, data loggers and constant temperature boxes. Local fieldwork includes a site where we have more than 200 nest boxes for tree swallows and house wrens. We have maintained a colony of zebra finches of known age to study behavior and physiology of reproduction, aging and immunosenescence. Click here for complete curriculum vitae.

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  Dr. David Vleck

David is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology at ISU and also coordinates the second semester of the introductory biology labs. He is a physiological ecologist whose research experience has ranged from energetics of burrowing by fossorial mammals, evolution of developmental patterns in birds, swimming energetics of marine iguanas and thermoregulation in insects. His research has dealt with energetics of alternative reproductive modes in reptiles and the adaptive significance of variation in water economy of developing reptile embryos. He collaborates with Carol Vleck on studies of the physiology of avian eggs, Adlie penguins, and the comparative biology of aging, especially in birds.

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Deb Christensen

Deb graduated from ISU with a B.S. in Zoology after previously earning a B.S. in Health and Human Performance. She entered the Ph. D. Program in Zoology and Genetics and is working on how vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) controls prolactin secretion in zebra finches, including the relationships between age, experience, breeding stage, and prolactin response. She is also using immunocytochemistry to assay lactotroph and somatotroph activity in the anterior pituitary.

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Gaby Palacios

Maria Gabriela Palacios is originally from Rio Negro, Argentina. She received her B.A. at the University of Buenos Aires in Ecology and Evolution, and did an undergraduate thesis looking at the relationship between the acoustic frequencies of bird songs and morphological characteristics such as beak size. In 2003 she completed her master's in Organismal Biology and Ecology on evolution of life history strategies in birds at the University of Montana under the guidance of Dr. Thomas Martin. She is currently working on mechanisms of immunosenescence in tree swallows and how age and immunosenescence affect parental allocation decisions.

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Becky Parsons

Becky Parsons graduated from ISU with a degree in Biology and started working on her Master's Degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Fall, 2006. She is interested in how elevated glucocorticoids, associated with food stress, affect growth rate and phenotypic development in birds. She has been working with tree swallows in which clutch sizes can vary from three to seven chicks.

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Dr. Wendy Reed

Wendy completed her PhD in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Program in 2000, and is now an assistant professor at North Dakota State University. Wendy's dissertation described the influence of maternal effects present in eggs (yolk, testosterone, egg size) on juvenile survival in American coots. She developed a powerful design for cross-fostering experiments to separate pre- and post-hatching maternal effects on offspring fitness, and investigated the importance of local variation in habitat quality to reproductive success in a Manitoba pothole landscape. To learn more about her latest work, click here.

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Dr. Chris Olson

Chris Olson did his undergraduate work at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, then worked with ornithologists at the University of Montana, Northern Arizona University, and UC California Davis. He is the author of the Virginia Warbler species account in The Birds of North America: Life Histories for the 21st Century, and has extensive field experience in Argentina, Mexico, and the southwest US. Chris completed the ISU doctoral program in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2006. While at ISU he worked on the influences of behaviorally induced temperature regimes on the physiology and growth of avian embryos. Since leaving ISU he has served as a visitng assistant professor at Portland State University and is doing postdoctoral work at the Oregon Health Sciences Center.To see more visit his website.

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Wei Liu

Wei Liu got a B.S. in Plant Molecular and Development Biology at Peking University and entered the ISU EEB program in 2001. He finished his M.S. degree in 2004, examining the relationship between oxidative damage and age in tissues from several species of birds. He is currently in a PhD program in conservation biology at Michigan State University and is doing field work in China.

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Lori Ross

Lori finished her M.S. degree in Ecology and Evolution at ISU in 1997. Her research focus was on the relationship between incubation behavior and the parental hormone, prolactin, in Antarctic Adlie penguins. She then enrolled in the Veterinary Medicine Program at the University of Illinois.

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Dr. Tamara Ross

Tamara spent a postdoctoral year in 1998-1999 developing DNA fingerprinting techniques for penguin blood samples from Antarctica. She received her Ph.D from ISU in August 1998. Her dissertation work on the federally endangered Iowa Pleistocene snail, Discus macclintocki, involved assessments of population size and genetic diversity in local populations. She is currently working for the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish.

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Dr. Theresa Bucher

Terry, who is seated in the photo, was part of our field team in Antarctica in 1995-1997. In addition to her interest in penguin behavior and physiology, she has broad interests in comparative respiratory physiology and energetics in a variety of vertebrates ranging from tropical frogs and high elevation hummingbirds to Antarctic seabirds.

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Amber Cribbs

Amber Cribbs was a UMEB student majoring in biology. Ambers research focused on the stress hormone, corticosterone. She measured corticosterone in House sparrows and how it varies between sexes and with season. She presented these data in a poster at the American Ornithologists Union meeting at the University of Illinois in August, 2003. Amber also worked with Zebra Finches to study the effects of aging on glucocorticoid expression and immune response with Mark Haussmann. She presented this work at the SICB meeting in New Orleans in January, 2004.

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Carrie Sanneman

Carrie was a biology and environmental studies major. She was also a member of UMEB. She spent a summer collecting blood from American alligators in Rockfeller State Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana and from Leach's Storm-petrels on Kent Island in New Brunswick, Canada and then spent a semester studying at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand.

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