Kathleen Westby and Molly Schumacher, graduate students from Distinguished Professor Steven Juliano’s research group, recently completed their degrees and have moved on to the next steps in their career.
Westby completed her Ph.D. dissertation and graduated in May 2015. Her dissertation, titled “Environmental impacts on life history in container breeding mosquitoes,” dealt with multiple aspects of how the larval environment of mosquitoes affects life history traits of adults and possible impacts on disease transmission. She has taken a position as a post-doctoral researcher at Tyson Research Center, Washington University, St. Louis, working on mosquito ecology and evolution in the laboratory of Kim Medley.
Schumacher completed her M.S. thesis and will graduate in August 2015. Her thesis, titled “Bacterially-based immune challenges and trauma elicit terminal investment in male Aedes aegypti,” investigated the responses of male mosquitoes to threats imposed by pathogen infection and injuries. It is the first investigation of terminal investment in male mosquitoes. She has taken a position as research technician in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agriculture Research Service (ARS) laboratory in Peoria, working in the laboratory of Alex Rooney on ovicidal pathogens of mosquitoes.
