Lab Alumni

Former Students in the HT lab go on to do many new and exciting things. Below are some of the excellent students we have had over the years. 

 
Post-Doctoral Researchers

 

Nick Anderson, PhD

Nick completed his PhD with the HT lab in 2021. His work focuses on understanding how chronic exposure to neonicotinoids might affect bee survival, fecundity, and behavior. Currently he is a lecturer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. For more information check out his website: https://nicklanderson.com

Karl Roeder, PhD
Karl joined the lab in 2019 after completing a PhD at the University of Oklahoma. His post-doctorate work focused on (1) quantifying differences in insect biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide across agricultural practices and (2) determining if diversified cropping systems like multifunctional woody polycultures promote stability within invertebrate food webs. For more information check out his website: https://karoeder.com

Ryan Leonard, PhD
Ryan joined the lab in 2018 from the University of Sydney, Australia where he completed his PhD in ecology.  In his post-doc position, Ryan explored the ecology of ground-nesting bees and how common pesticides including neonicotinoids influence the behavior of these agriculturally important pollinators.


Graduate Students

Brittany Buckles
MS in Entomology | December 2015
Brittany conducted a project on wild bee nesting emergence rates under different restoration techniques in native prairie. She was also interested in habitat characteristics of native ground-nesting bees, such as temperature, compactness, and pH levels of soil.

Brenna Decker
MS in Entomology | December 2017
Brenna’s Master’s thesis explored the impact of burning time on bee and plant diversity.

Matt Safford
MS in Entomology | May 2018
Matt conducted a project on moth diversity in response to habitat structure and bat density.

Scott Clem, PhD

PhD in Entomology | May 2021

Scott joined the lab in the fall of 2016 as a PhD student. He received his bachelor’s degree in zoology with a minor in entomology in 2012, and a master’s degree in entomology in 2015 from Auburn University.


lab assistants

Crissy Gallick

Crissy coordinated with citizen scientists across the state in an effort to understand pollinator visitations to ornamental flowers through the I-Pollinate project. 

Morgan Mackert
Morgan was the lab manager from 2019-2021. She joined the lab after completing her Master’s degree on native bee communities supported within agroecosystems in Iowa. She is broadly interested in ground-nesting bee ecology and exploring methods to increase habitat for native bees in anthropogenically modified landscapes.

Joshua Villazana
Joshua joined the lab in May 2020 after completing a Master’s at the University of Maine and stayed through January 2021. His work focused on assessing direct and indirect effects of soil contamination on ground-nesting bees in observation nests in the laboratory to improve conservation efforts.  Find him on Twitter at @JoshuaVillazana.

Katie Barie
Katie was the lab manager from February 2017 until July 2019, during which time she coordinated a bee diversity project in the Missouri glades. She began her PhD at Penn State in the fall of 2019.


Undergraduates

Anna Grommes
Anna joined the lab in the fall of 2018. She worked on a project exploring the efficacy of essential oils as ground-nesting bee attractants in emergence tents. She is currently working towards a Master’s degree in Entomology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Alex Pane
Alex graduated from the UIUC School of Integrative Biology in 2016. He worked in the lab for two years as a lab/field assistant. His senior project examined bee nesting biology and the efficiency of emergence traps.

Nicole Wonderlin
Bachelor’s in Integrative Biology with distinction from the University of Illinois
Nicole worked in the lab on questions of conservation and biodiversity. Her senior distinction project examined plant-pollinator interactions and how they change in fragmented habitats. She is particularly interested in how these changing interactions affect plant morphology and what implications this has for plant persistence in changing environments.

Kristen Chin
Kristen worked with Dr. Harmon-Threatt for three years while at Washington University. She independently interviewed land managers to determine the practices they used and assessed how this might affect pollinators.

Amelia Snyder
Current graduate student at Indiana University
Amy was a field and lab assistant for two years.  She is particularly interested in questions surrounding water issues and is currently developing a senior thesis project to investigate relationships between bees, plants and drought.

Doug Wright
Doug served as our lab assistant from January to May 2014. He has previously worked in the medical entomology lab at the Illinois Natural History Survey identifying mosquitoes during the summer of 2013. He is mainly interested in the broad picture effects that pollinators can have on agriculture.

Evan Cropek
Evan worked in the lab during the spring of 2014 while a sophomore at Parkland College. She was involved with our “Local and Landscape Features Affect on Pollinators” project.

Sarah Heeg
Sarah worked in the lab during the spring of 2014. She finished her degree in Integrative Biology to one day become a conservation biologist. She is interested in the effects that a key species has on the surrounding ecosystem and the process it takes to conserve these important species.

Stephen Rubino
Stephen is a recent graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. He hopes to begin medical school in fall 2015.

Wanda Bonneville
Wanda is currently an undergraduate at UC Davis studying entomology.

Greer Ryan
Greer worked with Dr. Harmon-Threatt for three years at UC Berkeley. She went on to complete a Master’s degree at Indiana University in conservation.

Aditya Dave
Aditya conducted his thesis project with Dr. Harmon-Threatt at UC Berkeley. He went on to complete his DVM at UC Davis.

Hae-Yeong Ryu
Hae-Yeong is a PhD candidate at SUNY Stonybrook.

Benjamin Chiavini

Benjamin is a graduate student in the Dolezal lab at U of I.

Jamilyn Martin

Jami graduated in the spring of 2022.

Kristine Schoenecker

Kristine graduated in the spring of 2023. She began working in the Harmon-Threatt lab in June of 2021, when she began researching the effects of neonicotinoids and fungicides on butterflies. She is currently working as a laboratory technician for the Gratton Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Greta Keilman

Greta joined the lab in the summer of 2022 as an SSC intern. She is a junior in Integrative Biology and is studied how goldenrod leafminer beetles are impacted by neonicotinoid pesticides in their host plants and surrounding environment.

Lilliana Romero

Lilly joined the lab in the summer of 2022 as an SSC intern. She is a senior in NRES and is studying how neonicotinoid pesticides and fungicides impact characteristics and bee visitation rates of prairie plants.

Justine Macalindong

Justine studied natural enemies at the Phillips Tract prairie site with Nick Anderson and graduated in spring of 2022.