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Lab News
2023

  • January: Welcome to our new Lab Manager Julia Berliner! Julia completed her MS in Entomology at UGA in December 2022. She has studied insect community ecology, including interactions between plants, herbivores and predators, in agroecosystems.

2022

  • November: Farewell to monarch lab manager Kade Donaldson. Kade has worked in our lab for several years, starting as a UGA undergraduate. Kade is moving to the Atlanta area and seeking a career in government agency science and management.

  • April: Caroline Aikins successfully defended her master thesis and graduated in May 2022 with an MS Ecology degree.  After a summer of travel, Caroline started a position at the US Forest Service in California. 

2021

  • August:  Welcome to Caroline Aikins, Ecology MS student who is also a UGA Double Dawg!

  • July:  Ashley Ballew successfully defended her masters thesis and graduated with a MS Ecology degree.  She is starting a position in environmental education at a nature center in UT.

  • July: Dr. Sonia Altizer was appointed Interim Dean of the Odum School of Ecology.

  • April:  Cody Prouty successfully defended his masters thesis and graduates in May with an MS Ecology degree.  He is moving to the University of Florida to work with the honeybee research lab.

  • February: Congratulations to Dr. Claire Teitelbaum after a successful PhD dissertation defense! Claire will be starting a new position soon, in the USGS Patuxent wildlife research group.

2020

  • Welcome to new PhD students Tj Odom, Mike Newberry and Juliana Hoyos!

  • Congratulations to lab alumni Julie Rushmore (CDC), Dara Satterfield (FWS), Daniel Becker  (University of Oklahoma) on landing permanent positions at their respective institutions.

  • Farewell to Cecilia Sanchez, who accepted a postdoctoral research position at the EcoHealth Alliance in NYC!

  • The Altizer lab was quieter than usual this year, as we shut down operations from Mar-Jun owing to the SARS-CoV2 pandemic, and ramped up research activity during July-Dec. 

  • Dr. Altizer was recruited to the position of Associate Dean for Research and Operations in the Odum School of Ecology.

Fall 2018

  • Welcome to new graduate students Isabella Ragonese, Maria Luisa Muller, Cali Wilson, and Anna Willoughby!

  • Insectival 2018 is a success under the leadership of graduate student Izzy Ragonese and undergraduate Cecilia Nachtmann! This annual event, held at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, helps people of all ages learn about insects. 

  • The lab group's systematic review and meta-analysis, led by Cecilia and Dan, on the relationship between infection and body condition is published in Ecology Letters! See the article here and the write-up here.

2019

  • Welcome to new MS students Cody Prouty and Ashley Ballew!

  • Congratulations to Dr. Cecilia Sanchez and Dr. Ania Majewska on their successful PhD thesis defenses in 2019.

  • Farewell to former undergraduate Hayley Schroeder, who left UGA to pursue her PhD (and passion for insects) at Cornell University in the Department of Entomology.
  • Congratulations to Ania Majewska, who received the Robert Anderson Memorial Award for her outstanding dissertation research on the impacts of human-planted gardens for butterfly-pathogen interactions, and to Claire Teitelbaum, who was recognized by the James Carmon Award for the use of advanced computational methods in doctoral research.
  • Sonia Altizer and Andy Davis took 6-week-long professional leave during Fall 2019 to work in Nova Scotia, Canada, at Acadia University. 
Spring/Summer 2018

  • Ania Majewska and Claire Teitelbaum present their research at the meeting of the Ecological Society of America meeting in New Orleans.

  • Sonia Altizer receives the 2018 Lamar Dodd Creative Research Award, which is "given to recognize an outstanding body of nationally and internationally recognized scholarly or creative activities in the sciences."

  • Ania Majewska receives an award for her talk on monarch butterfly pathogens at the 2018 UGA Student Chapter of the Wildlife Disease Association Symposium; Claire Teitelbaum and Cecilia Sánchez receive awards for their talks at the Odum School of Ecology Graduate Student Symposium.

  • The 2018 Distinguished Graduate Student Teaching Award from the Odum School of Ecology is awarded to Ania Majewska!

  • Lab alumnus Dan Becker wins the Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award for his dissertation research on food subsidies and infectious disease.

  • Hayley Schroeder and Cody Prouty present their work at the 2018 CURO symposium.

  • An edited volume of Philosophical Transactions B on resource subsidies and host-pathogen dynamics, edited by Sonia Altizer, former lab member Dan Becker, and other collaborators, is available online. The volume features publications by Sonia Altizer, Dan Becker, former lab member Dara Satterfield, former lab member Lee Brown, and many collaborators.

  • Claire Teitelbaum's paper examining relationships between migration and parasitism across ungulate species is out in Proceedings B. This is in collaboration with former lab member Shan Huang, Sonia Altizer, and Richard Hall.

  • Ania Majewska's paper on the effects of pollinator gardens on butterflies is published in Insect Conservation and Diversity. 

  • Ania Majewska, Cecilia Sánchez, and Claire Teitelbaum give talks and undergraduates Hayley Schroeder and Cody Prouty present posters about their research at the 24th annual Odum School of Ecology Graduate Student Symposium.

  • Recent PhD graduate and former lab member Dan Becker published two new papers on vampire bats and mercury, and on resource provisioning and animal parasites.

  • ​Lab alumna Christina Faust was a keynote speaker at the 50:10 Odum School Anniversary Celebration in January!

Fall 2017

  • Sonia Altizer is named a UGA Women's Leadership Fellow for 2017-18

  • Cecilia Sánchez receives a National Geographic Young Explorer Grant.

  • Paola Barriga coordinates the Altizer lab outreach booth at Athens' annual Insectival event.

  • Sonia Altizer is a keynote speaker for the Monarchs Across Georgia pollinator symposium event.

  • Sonia Altizer and Paola Barriga travel to Tufts University to meet with collaborators on a newly-funded Department of Defense grant to study phenology, climate change, and butterfly ecology.

  • Claire Teitelbaum publishes a paper on pair-bond formation in whooping cranes and c0-authors a paper on the effects of supplementary feeding on brown bear movements.

Spring/Summer 2017

  • Congratulations to Dan Becker, who successfully defends his PhD and starts a postdoc at Montana State University!

  • Cecilia Sánchez passes her oral prospectus defense and is now officially a PhD candidate! 

  • Ania Majewska presents her work on butterfly gardens at the ESA meeting in Portland.

  • Claire Teitelbaum presents her work on nomadic animal movements at the Gordon Conference on Animal Movement in Ventura, CA.

  • Paola Barriga presents at the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research conference.

  • Ania Majewska and Hayley Schroeder travel to Mexico to present their work at the 4th International Monarch Butterfly Conservation Conference.

  • Cecilia Sánchez presents at the 5th International Berlin Bat Meeting, the Urban Wildlife Conference, and the Infectious Diseases of Bats Symposium.

  • Claire Teitelbaum travels to Frankfurt on a Research Coordination Network travel grant.

Fall 2016

  • Welcome to Claire Teitelbaum, a new PhD student in the Altizer lab co-advised by Richard Hall.

  • Cecilia Sánchez is named an ARCS Foundation Scholar, which will help support her research on urban flying foxes in Australia

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