Who We Are
Dr. Anne Leonard
I am Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the UNR Department of Biology, affiliated with graduate programs in both Ecology Evolution and Conservation Biology as well as Integrative Neuroscience. Before joining UNR in 2012, I was previously a Darwin Fellow at UMass Amherst, a PERT Fellow at the University of Arizona, and a PhD student in the UC Davis Animal Behavior Graduate Group. I am currently a member of the editorial board at Biology Letters and Journal of Pollination Ecology. Beyond trying to teach bees, I also teach a class on scientific thinking for non-majors (spring: Bio 125), as well as a course on sensory ecology and evolution (fall: Bio 418).
I update sections of this website regularly, but for live play-by-play, follow us on social media:
Lab Members
Anna Tatarko
Anna joined the EECB graduate program as a PhD student in Fall 2018. Funded by a NIFA Predoctoral Fellowship, she is exploring the effects of pesticides on insect sensory systems, gut microbiomes, and plant-pollinator interactions.
Dr. Charles Dean
Charles joined us as a postdoctoral scholar in August, 2023. He received his BS in Evolution and Ecology at the Ohio State University and his PhD in Entomology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2022. He has previously studied a variety of different insects spanning milkweed bugs, parsnip webworms, bumble bees, and honey bees, across a broad range of scientific fields, including ecophysiology, chemical ecology, genomics/transcriptomics, and systematics. Funded by a USDA NIFA grant, Charles is currently researching the effects of climate change on the interactions between plants common to the Great Basin and native bees. He is specifically examining the role of elevated temperatures on the changing floral resources available among wildflowers of Northern Nevada, and the nutritional requirements of heat stressed bumble bees and mason bees.
Jessica Buelow
Jess joined the lab as a PhD student in the EECB Graduate Program in Fall 2021. Funded by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, she is exploring connections between floral nutrition, climate change, and bee behavior.
ALUMNI
Anthony Vaudo, postdoc completed 2023, now a Research Biological Scientist at the Rocky Mountain Research Station (USDA Forest Service), Adjunct Faculty in the UNR Biology Dept. and co-PI on a recent NIFA award.
Jillian Luthy and Eva Lin, who completed NSF REPS (Research Experience for Post Baccalaureate Students) projects in the lab in 2022
Sarah Richman, postdoc completed 2021. Sarah is now a postdoc at ETH Zurich.
Jacob Francis, PhD 2020. Jake is now an Assistant Professor at Florida Atlantic University.
Felicity Muth, postdoc completed 2019. Felicity is now an Assistant Professor at UC Davis.