lab head
Daniel Becker, Principal Investigator
Daniel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology. He received his PhD in ecology from the University of Georgia, followed by postdoctoral research on pathogen spillover at Montana State University and by an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellowship on animal migration and infectious disease at Indiana University. He is a National Geographic Explorer, member of BOHRN, and a co-PI for the NSF-funded Viral Emergence Research Initiative Institute.
Interests: zoonoses, environmental change, mathematical models, ecoimmunology, animal movement, macroecology
email, CV, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Publons, he/him
postdoctoral researchers
Amanda Vicente-Santos, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow
Amanda is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology, working on comparative studies of bat innate immunity as part of our NSF BII with VERENA. She has studied Neotropical bats for over 15 years as a model system for host–pathogen coevolution and anthropogenic impacts, using a combination of fieldwork, molecular methods, spatial analysis, and theory. As a Fulbright Scholar from Costa Rica, Amanda received her PhD from Emory University before joining OU.
Interests: disease ecology, host–pathogen coevolution, ecoimmunology, anthropogenic impacts
email, twitter, ResearchGate, she/her
Amanda Vicente-Santos, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow
Amanda is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biology, working on comparative studies of bat innate immunity as part of our NSF BII with VERENA. She has studied Neotropical bats for over 15 years as a model system for host–pathogen coevolution and anthropogenic impacts, using a combination of fieldwork, molecular methods, spatial analysis, and theory. As a Fulbright Scholar from Costa Rica, Amanda received her PhD from Emory University before joining OU.
Interests: disease ecology, host–pathogen coevolution, ecoimmunology, anthropogenic impacts
email, twitter, ResearchGate, she/her
Molly Simonis, IC Postdoctoral Fellow
Molly is an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research focuses on cross-species transmission dynamics of DNA and RNA viruses in co-roosting Neotropical bats as well as the health and immunology of North American bats. Before coming to OU, Molly completed her PhD at Wright State University, where she researched how long-term pathogen exposure impacts host ecology and physiology using big brown bats and white-nose syndrome as a model study system.
Interests: wildlife health, disease ecology, ecoimmunology, bat conservation, trait changes
email, website, twitter, GoogleScholar, ResearchGate, she/her
Molly Simonis, IC Postdoctoral Fellow
Molly is an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research focuses on cross-species transmission dynamics of DNA and RNA viruses in co-roosting Neotropical bats as well as the health and immunology of North American bats. Before coming to OU, Molly completed her PhD at Wright State University, where she researched how long-term pathogen exposure impacts host ecology and physiology using big brown bats and white-nose syndrome as a model study system.
Interests: wildlife health, disease ecology, ecoimmunology, bat conservation, trait changes
email, website, twitter, GoogleScholar, ResearchGate, she/her
Briana Betke, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow (incoming)
Briana is a PhD candidate in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior at the University of Texas in Austin and holds a BS in wildlife conservation from the University of Arizona. Her PhD focuses on impacts of urbanization and synanthropic behavior on flea-borne pathogens in humans and on global patterns of viral diversity across bat species, with the latter supported as a Fellow-in-Residence with VERENA. She will be starting as a postdoctoral fellow at OU in early 2024 through a NSF PRFB.
Interests: disease ecology in wildlife and humans, urban ecology, OneHealth, environmental change
email, website, lab, twitter, she/her
research staff
Bret Demory, Research Technician
Bret is our group research technician. He earned his BS in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation from California State University, Sacramento. Prior to coming to OU, he worked with various wild bat, bird, reptile, and fish species and assisted with seasonal fieldwork for our Oklahoma bat and songbird projects. At OU, Bret works with field teams in Oklahoma and Panama, carries out DNA extractions and pathogen PCR for bat and bird projects, and helps to manage the molecular lab.
Interests: wildlife conservation, disease ecology
email, he/him
graduate students
Lauren Lock, PhD Student
Lauren is a PhD student in the Department of Biology. She is interested in how wildlife disease dynamics differ between fragmented and well-connected habitats. Her PhD investigates this topic using metagenomic methods in Neotropical bats in Belize and is developing metagenomic methods in the TABR system. Prior to OU, Lauren earned her BS in Biology and MS in Bioinformatics from Juniata College, followed by work in a clinical laboratory as a technician and quality manager.
Interests: wildlife disease ecology, molecular biology, microbiology, landscape ecology, infectious diseases
email, twitter, ResearchGate, she/her
Lauren Lock, PhD Student
Lauren is a PhD student in the Department of Biology. She is interested in how wildlife disease dynamics differ between fragmented and well-connected habitats. Her PhD investigates this topic using metagenomic methods in Neotropical bats in Belize and is developing metagenomic methods in the TABR system. Prior to OU, Lauren earned her BS in Biology and MS in Bioinformatics from Juniata College, followed by work in a clinical laboratory as a technician and quality manager.
Interests: wildlife disease ecology, molecular biology, microbiology, landscape ecology, infectious diseases
email, twitter, ResearchGate, she/her
Taylor Verrett, PhD Student
Taylor is a PhD student in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. She received her BS in Wildlife and Fisheries Science from Texas A&M University, where she studied avian malaria, and then worked with birds locally and in the Galápagos as a research technician. Before coming to OU, Taylor did her MS on bat–bat fly associations at Western Kentucky University. Her PhD research focuses on the interactions between migration, urbanization, and infectious disease dynamics in wild songbirds.
Interests: disease dynamics and ecology, molecular ecology, urban ecology, host–parasite associations
email, twitter, ResearchGate, she/her
Meagan Allira, MS Student
Meagan is a MS student in the Department of Biology. She received her BS in Microbiology from Colorado State University, where she worked on developing intestinal epithelial cell lines of Artibeus jamaicensis, before leading rodent surveys with USDA APHIS and phenological studies of Myotis volans with CSU. Her MS research will focus on the seasonality of and relationships between innate immunity and viral (co-)infection in migratory TABR at western Oklahoma maternity roosts.
Interests: immunology, virology, bat migration, coronaviruses, transmission dynamics
email, website, twitter, she/her
Kristin Dyer, MS Student
Kristin is a MS student in the Department of Biology. She earned her BS in Wildlife Biology from Texas State University, worked on various bat and reptile projects, and was our jack-of-all-trades research technician at OU from 2021–2023. Kristin's MS research will follow work began during her technician position, assessing changes in TABR migration timing in Oklahoma and Texas using both radar and MOTUS as well as how this migration affects bat–bat fly–Bartonella dynamics.
Interests: bat and herpetofauna conservation, disease ecology, animal movement, tracking technology, ectoparasites
email, twitter, she/her
Caroline Cummings, PhD Student
Caroline is a PhD student in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. She received her BSA as a Polymathic Scholar in Biology from the University of Texas in Austin. Caroline is part of VERENA, where she is working to develop an atlas of the bat immune system and to develop trait-based predictive models to identify novel reservoir hosts of zoonotic pathogens. Her PhD research will focus on investigating how land-use change impacts bat immunity, host competence, and viral spillover risks.
Interests: ecoimmunology, macroecology, host–virus coevolution, land-use change, mathematical modeling, OneHealth
email, twitter, she/her
Alicia Roistacher, PhD Student
Alicia is a PhD student in the Department of Biology. She received her BS in Biology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and her MS research at the University of Missouri compared physiology of captive big brown bats in response to diet. Prior to OU, she worked as a molecular biologist at Case Western Reserve University. Alicia is part of VERENA, and her PhD will take a multi-omics approach toward bat immunology and comparisons between and within bat species and populations.
Interests: bat conservation, host–pathogen coevolution, wildlife physiology, ecoimmunology, disease ecology, genetics
email, she/her
honorary lab members
Alexis Heckley, PhD Student
Alexis is a PhD student at McGill University in the Department of Biology. Her dissertation investigates effects of parasitism and evolution on host dispersal and disease dynamics in stickleback fish. Alexis received her BSc from the University of Alberta and then worked with bats as a technician in Canada and Panama. For her MSc internship, Alexis worked on a meta-analysis of how parasitism covaries with deforestation in Neotropical bats and is now expanding this work further.
Interests: deforestation, Neotropics, zoonotic pathogens, infectious disease dynamics, dispersal, personality
email, website, lab, twitter, she/her
Avirup Sanyal, PhD Student
Avirup is a PhD student at Griffith University in Australia, working with the BatOneHealth team. He received his BSc in microbiology from St Xavier’s College and his MSc in virology from the National Institute of Virology, India. Avirup's PhD focuses on bacterial and viral coinfections in bats and implications for pathogen spillover. He is working with the lab on studying cophylogeny of bats with bacterial and viral pathogens and how coevolutionary relationships vary geographically.
Interests: OneHealth, coinfection, pathogen communities, immunology, zoonotic viruses
email, ResearchGate, lab, he/him
undergraduate researchers
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Mackenzie Hightower (she/her)
Department of Biology Interests: animal health, animal behavior, virology Mackenzie is assisting with field and molecular studies of herpesviruses and haemosporidian parasites in migratory sparrows and bats in Oklahoma. Sydney Austin (she/her)
Department of Biology Interests: ornithology, evolutionary biology, taxonomy Sydney is assisting with field studies to sample overwintering migratory sparrows across both urban and non-urban habitat types in Oklahoma. |
AJ Santos (he/him)
Department of Biology Interests: virology, human health AJ is studying alphacoronavirus evolution and phylogenetics, with an eye towards bat viruses and their role in human viruses such as HCoV-229E. Drake Johnston (he/him)
Department of Biology Interests: zoonotic diseases, pathogen characterization, hematology Drake is assisting with preliminary hematological surveys of wild bats across North America in relation to multiple intrinsic and extrinsic stressors. |
alumni
Maria Muñoz (she/her, undergraduate): currently a PhD student at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (Dr. Brian Allan)
Jessie Merrifield (she/her, undergraduate): currently a MPH student at Columbia University (Dr. Maria Diuk-Wasser)
Juliana Nunes (she/her, MSc intern): currently a MS student at the University of São Paulo (Dr. Marcos Heinemann)
Allen Pau (he/him, undergraduate): currently a medical assistant with Makena Pediatrics
Gracie Hedgpeth (she/her, undergraduate): currently a PhD student at the University of Notre Dame (Dr. Jason Rohr)
Anushka Sukhadia (she/her, undergraduate): currently a PREP scholar at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
Jessie Merrifield (she/her, undergraduate): currently a MPH student at Columbia University (Dr. Maria Diuk-Wasser)
Juliana Nunes (she/her, MSc intern): currently a MS student at the University of São Paulo (Dr. Marcos Heinemann)
Allen Pau (he/him, undergraduate): currently a medical assistant with Makena Pediatrics
Gracie Hedgpeth (she/her, undergraduate): currently a PhD student at the University of Notre Dame (Dr. Jason Rohr)
Anushka Sukhadia (she/her, undergraduate): currently a PREP scholar at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
interested in joining the lab? find more information here
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