Undergrads - Savage Lab

UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCHERS

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Rachel Gutner

Rachel is a senior majoring in Biology and has been working in the Savage lab since 2018. She is currently pursuing a project that analyzes genetic differences between coastal and inland populations of the southern leopard frog, Rana sphenocephala. Rachel is interested in genetic adaptations to anthropogenic change and plans to pursue a related project for her PhD.

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Jayde Reid

Jayde is a senior in her last semester studying General Biology as a second bachelor’s student; her first degree is in Creative Writing. She is working on a project which aims to establish a standards curve for qPCR results for environmental DNA extractions from water samples of known pathogen concentration against which field data can be compared. Jayde plans to attend graduate school to earn an M.S. in Wildlife Biology.

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Net Galt

Net is a Senior majoring in Biology. She is working on a project with amphibian pathogens in invasive Cuban tree frogs. She plans to attend medical school and pursue a PhD in epidemiology.

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Noah Penney
Noah is a currently studying Zoology at UCF. He is involved in the Savage Lab’s ongoing study of the Bd fungus in amphibians

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Kathleen Kuesters

Kathleen is a Biology and Biomedical Sciences double major, and she iss especially interested in infectious diseases. She is currently working on ecoimmunology of reptiles and plans to earn a PhD in either infectious diseases or epidemiology.

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Allison Malay

Allison is a Biology major working with chytridiomycosis. She intends to pursue a Master’s degree in Evolutionary Biology with a focus in mycology.

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Elena Triantafyllopoulou

Elena is a senior majoring in Biology and has been part of the Savage lab group since the spring of 2016. She is currently working on a project which aims to sequence most (if not all!) of the genome of the emerging amphibian pathogen Perkinsea (aka Dermomycoides sp. or PLO = Perkinsus-like organism) using next-generation whole-genome sequencing in an attempt to better understand the organism. Upon graduation, she intends to pursue graduate studies in the field of Nutritional Genomics.

Sire Kassama

Sire is a Biotechnology major. She is working on a crop genomics project focused on beans and drought tolerance. Sire intends to pursue a Ph.D. in plant sciences.