The Hellmann Lab at University of Dayton
The Hellmann Lab
The Ohio State University
Exploring the underlying mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity
JENNIFER HELLMANN (Primary Investigator, she/her/hers)
2023 - Present Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University
2020 - 2023 Assistant Professor, University of Dayton
2016 - 2020 Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
2016 PhD, The Ohio State University
CURRENT MEMBERS
ALEX SHEPHARD (POSTDOC)
I completed my PhD at the University of Minnesota and recently finished a postdoc at Indiana University. I am broadly interested in the mechanisms of developmental plasticity and their evolutionary causes and consequences. I study these topics in the context of life history, stress resistance, and aging-related phenotypes. In the Hellmann lab, my work focuses on understanding how paternal stress affects offspring physiology and life histories, and on identifying mechanisms of non-genetic inheritance that might underlie these transgenerational effects.
SUNISHKA THAKUR (POSTDOC)
I am broadly interested in understanding how stressors and the social environment of an individual can shape their behavior and physiology. In my PhD work at the University of Texas at Austin, I examined how the social environment can shape stress responses in a species with a complex mating system. Here in the Hellmann lab, my primary work will involve understanding how stressors such as predation can impact parental social behaviors, especially parental care, and how these changes to parental behavior alter the stress responses and social behaviors of future generations.
MICHAELA ROGERS (PhD student)
Overall, I seek to understand the conditions under which adaptive transgenerational plasticity occurs. My research focuses on the impact that different types of predator cues (visual, olfactory) have on the next generation's fitness. A secondary interest lies in the connection between predator exposure and immune response.
SIDNEY RYAN (PhD student)
I am interested in the ability of organisms to adapt to changing environments within their lifetime and the mechanisms that underly that adaptation. My previous work has included investigating the homing abilities of nesting male Threespine Stickleback in Vancouver Island, British Columbia and studying a lineage replacement event of the extinct Threespine Stickleback counterpart G. doryssus in a late Miocene lakebed.
CAITLIN WEID (PhD student)
I seek to understand the transgenerational effects and consequences of multiple stressors. I also have a soft spot for all things marine and spineless (marine inverts!)
Undergraduates
Aubrey Hill
Mugdha Patil
Ammar Siddiqui
Ella Johnson
LAB ALUMNI
LAUREN CORRIGAN (MS)
Thesis: Persistent effects of larval exposure to glyphosate in mangrove rivulus fish
TRUTH MULLER (MS)
Thesis: Born to Win or Born Losers? Transgenerational Effects of Chronic Aggressive Competition and Social Interaction on Behavioral Traits in Kryptolbias marmoratus, the Mangrove Rivulus
ELIZABETH GEORGE (Research Scientist)
Current position: Assistant professor at Gannon University
