Carter Lab at California State University Long Beach

Current graduate students

Kriska Parda: Outbreeding depression in Drosophila melanogaster.
Kriska is looking at long-term changes in fitness in genetic crosses between divergent inbred lines in order to measure outcrossing depression. Her project also examines the effects of outbreeding on the symmetry of hybrids between divergent inbred lines of Drosophila melanogaster.
Alexandra Papagno: Frequency dependent sexual selection in Homo sapiens.
Alex is interested in whether human preferences for certain traits may be influenced by their frequency in the population - are traits perceived as more desirable as they are more common or rare? Her project will involve an attractiveness preference survey with human subjects.

Current undergraduate 495/teaching students

Kara Oculato: Evolution (Bio 312, spring 2012)
In addition to assisting with grading for 312 Kara will present a lecture on a subject to be determined.
Kristell Yap: Biostatistics (Bio 260, spring 2012)
In addition to assisting with grading for 260 Kristell will present a lecture on a subject to be determined. Kristell is also a Bio 496 student doing research.

Current undergraduate 296/496 research students

Alma Madrigal (R.I.S.E. Fellow): "Lieutenant of the lab".
Alma manages the overall maintenence of the lab and the fly lines in the lab and works with several other students assisting and supporting their research projects. Her specific research projects include an analysis of the effect of inbreeding on FA and working with Kriska on an analysis of the effect of outbreeding on FA.
Shanna Newton (R.I.S.E. Fellow): Effects of inbreeding on female mate choice in Drosophila.
In addition to assisting Kriska and other lab members with their projects Shanna is conducting a study of mate choice behavior by female Drosophila with varying degrees of inbreeding.

Albert Dickan: Evolution of mammalian teeth.
Albert is conducting a phylogenetic study of tooth evolution in mammals, he is gathering information to determine how patterns of teeth (i.e., tooth formula) have changed over time. He plans to be a dentist.
Allen Twu: Spite and physical performance.
Allen is in the preliminary stages of a study examining the potential for spite and racism to alter physical performance on physical challenges.
Amberlee Mckee: Effects of inbreeding on female mate choice in Drosophila.
Amberlee is working with Shanna of a study of mate choice behavior by female Drosophila with varying degrees of inbreeding.
Andrew Nguyen: Disease and antagonistic pleiotropy.
Andrew conducted a literature survey to examine whether the high levels of genetic variation for alleles that cause some human diseases may be due to past selection for alleles that cause disease but also conferred higher fitness via some other advantage. This work has been published in a peer-reviewed research journal! See the PDF on the "publications" page for the final product of his project.
Andrew Sun: Team Kriska.
Andrew is a member of "Team Kriska" assisting Kriska Parda with her study. He plans to investigate the phenomenon of hormesis in Drosophila in the future. Ashley Smith: Intro to flies film project.
Ashley is a former film studies student and is making a series of videos describing the methods used in lab with a goal to wider distribution (e.g., YouTube) in the future.
Cecine Nguyen (L.S.A.M.P. Fellow): Cancer mortality and suffering.
Cecine is collecting economic, prevalence and suffering data for a variety of cancers to evaluate the "worst" or "best" cancers for people to do die from in order to make policy recommendations.
Julie Dao: Team Kriska.
Julie is a member of "Team Kriska" assisting Kriska Parda with her study.
Kristell Yap: Antagonistic pleiotropy of mutations.
Kristell is conducting preliminary experiments for a study investigating the antagonistic pleiotropy of new mutations.
Linda Nguyen: Team Kriska.
Linda is a member of "Team Kriska" assisting Kriska Parda with her study. Linda is an imaging pro, she has a reputation as the fastest and best imager in the lab.
Lindsey Noordman: Evolution of cetacean social behavior.
Lindsey is conducting an phylogenetic study of group size evolution in cetaceans, she is gathering information to determine whether early whales lived in packs or hunted solo?
Marcell Cadney (L.S.A.M.P. Fellow): Brain:body allometry and human brain evolution.
Marcell is conducting an allometric study of brain and body size and their relation to temperature in order to explore the "brain-radiator" hypothesis of human brain evolution.
Maryrose Manibog: Team Kriska.
Nikki is a member of "Team Kriska" assisting Kriska Parda with her study.
Molly Jorges: Social group dominance patterns in primates.
Molly is collecting and organizing data from the primary research literature about the patterns of social dominance in primate species. When not in the lab, she spends much of her time in Africa raising baby baboons by hand, seriously.
Nancy To: Team Kriska.
Nancy is a member of "Team Kriska" assisting Kriska Parda with her study.
Natalie Maltz: FA and lifespan.
Natalie will be conducting a study to see if stability during development (assessed via FA) is associated with lengthened lifespan in Drosophila.
Nikki Viola: Team Kriska.
Nikki is a member of "Team Kriska" assisting Kriska Parda with her study.
Pauline Blaimont: Habitat preference.
Pauline is studying the habitat preference of lab Drosophila. She is currently designing the apparatus needed for these studies.
Sonya Babayan: FA and lifespan.
Sonya will be conducting a study to see if stability during development (assessed via FA) is associated with lengthened lifespan in Drosophila.
Stanley Sweeting: Spite and physical performance.
Stanley is in the preliminary stages of a study examining the potential for spite and racism to alter physical performance on physical challenges.

Former undergraduate 495/teaching students

Mary Cruz: Evolution (Bio 312, fall 2011)
In addition to assisting with grading for 312 Mary presented a lecture describing the evolutionary history of birds and how their evolution illustrates several of the concepts described earlier in the course.
Joanna Hoegerman: Evolution (Bio 312, fall 2010, spring 2011), Biostatistics (Bio 260, spring 2011)
In addition to assisting with grading for 312 Joanna presented a lecture each semester on plant evolution, describing a number of adaptations in plants and relating them to topics oreviously discussed during the semester. In the summer of 2010 and spring of 2011 she presented an educational ethics module to several lab sections of Bio 260 and participated in an assessment of the effectiveness of this module. Joanna was awarded "Honors" by the biology department at graduation in 2011.
Jenny Pham: Evolution (Bio 312, spring 2010)
In addition to assisting with grading for the course Jenny presented a lecture describing the ways in which mutations occur and how they contribute to the process of evolution at the molecular level.
Ebony Flowers: Biostatistics (Bio 260, spring 2009)
In addition to assisting with grading for the course Ebony presented a lecture describing the procedures used by the Food and Drug Adminsiatrion (FDA) to approve drugs and how some of the techniques learned in class may be used in such circumstances.
Deanna Worden: Evolution (Bio 312, spring 2009)
In addition to assisting with grading for the course Deanna presented a lecture describing the evolutionary history of whales and how their evolution illustrates several of the concepts described earlier in the course.

Former undergraduate 296/496 research students

Alex Plong (2010-2011): Team Kriska.
Alex was a member of "Team Kriska" assisting Kriska Parda with her study. After spending time in this lab he moved to Judy Brusslan's lab here at CSULB because of his interest in molecular work.
Dominique Monsibais (2011): Directional asymmetry in Drosophila populations
Dominique worked on many aspects of the large group project in the spring of 2011 that measured the DA of a number of Drosophila individuals from a number of different populations.
Amanda Berkey (2010-2011): Outbreeding depression in Drosophila melanogaster
Amanda assisted Kriska with her large scale project and was essential for the preliminary data and first trial.
Renee Leonard(2010-2011): FA filter effect in Drosophila melanogaster
Renee conducted experiments to gather data on whether a "mortality filter effect" may explain conflicting results from studies of FA and stress.
Kriska Parda (2009-2010): Now a graduate student, see above.
Edward Tran (2010): Inbreeding and fluctuating asymmetry in Drosophila
Edward worked on a large group project in the fall of 2010 that measured the FA of a number of Drosophila individuals from inbred and outbred families derived from wild populations.
Elizabeth Juarez (2010): Inbreeding and fluctuating asymmetry in Drosophila
Elizabeth worked on a large group project in the fall of 2010 that measured the FA of a number of Drosophila individuals from inbred and outbred families derived from wild populations.
Cathryn Shults (2009): Analysis of toxins.
Cathryn conducted measurements to estimate the concentrations of various toxic chemicals that induce developmental stress in Drosophila melanogaster without changing mortality.
Gerene Garcia (2009): Patterns of Drosophila melanogaster wing DA.
Gerene conducted measurements of Drosophila wing DA to determine whether DA varies between geographically distinct populations within the same species. Gerene was awarded the biology department's "Outstanding Graduate" award at graduation in 2010.
Leslie Healis (2009): A comparative allometric study of birth size.
Leslie conducted a comparative literature survey of allometric data in order to determine whether data from wild animals is consistent with a hypothesis that prey species tend to have relatively larger offspring than predator species.
Giovanni Artega (2008-2009): Estimating natural phenotypic variation due to developmental noise.
Giovanni performed empirical measurements to determine the proportion of overall phenotypic variance due to developmental instability. To do this he measured the traits and fluctuating asymmetries (FA) of large samples of individuals from a variety of populations in order to quantify FA and calculate variance due to developmental stability from this data.
Andrea Balogh (2008-2009): A comparative allometric study of brain evolution.
Andrea conducted a comparative literature survey of allometric data in order to determine whether data from other taxa is consistent with the "brain-radiator" hypothesis for early human brain evolution.

Former Bridges to the Bacculaureate research students

Julio Castro (Summer 2011): Mate choice in Drosophila
Julio examined intrapopulation and interpopulation mate preference in female Drosophila with a series of mate choice experiments.
Iris Aguilar (Summer 2010): Patterns of Drosophila DA in different genders.
Iris worked with two other students measuring directional asymmetry (DA) of Drosophila wing size. She analyzed the relationship between the DA observed in males and females of the same population.
Natalie Matlz (Summer 2010): Patterns of Drosophila DA in different species.
Natalie worked with two other students measuring directional asymmetry (DA) of Drosophila wing size. She analyzed the patterns of DA seen in different species to determine whether more closely related species seemed to have more similar patterns of DA.Now a CSULB student in the lab, see above.
Karen Monge (Summer 2010): Patterns of Drosophila DA in different populations.
Karen worked with two other students measuring directional asymmetry (DA) of Drosophila wing size. She analyzed the patterns of DA seen in different populations within the same species to determine whether variation for DA exists at that level of divergence.
Jessica Weise (Summer 2009): Characterizing a putative wing vein mutation.
She discovered what appears to be a phenotypic mutation that causes extra wing veins in Drosophila melanogaster. She continued to work in the lab for a short while to identify the physical location of this mutation and characterize it further.
Andrea Akabike (Summer 2009): Survival of Drosophila larvae with different media and added dry yeast.
She conducted her own experiments testing mortality differences caused by the addition of dry yeast to the standard media used for raising Drosophila. She also examined survival on media containing only specific sugars as a source of calories.
Shelley Peng (Summer 2009): What is the effect of food coloring on Drosophila larvae.
She conducted her own experiments testing mortality differences caused by the addition of various dyes and colorings added to the standard media used for raising Drosophila.

Former high school volunteer research students

Wilson Lee (2010-2011): Theoretical population genetics.
Wilson conducted mathematical investigations to derive an approximation for the fixation time of advantageous alleles with arbitrary degrees of dominance. In the summer of 2011 Wilson began studying theoretical population genetics at UCLA.