SADD LAB
If you are interested in opportunities to join the SADD LAB, please contact Ben Sadd.
Austin Calhoun. Austin is a PhD student working on immune priming and microbe-immune interactions in bumble bees. He previously completed a MS on the interaction between pesticides and parasites for bumble bee health. As an undergraduate he worked on bumble bee-trypanosome interactions.
Paul Emmert. Paul is an undergraduate student. He is starting work on the interactions between bumble bees and their beneficial microbes, and how sociality can impact this.
Brenna Long. Brenna is an undergraduate student. She is working on bumble bee and viral pathogen interaction projects.
Amélie Mwilambwe. Amélie is an undergraduate honors student. She is working on a project of how nutrition determines microbe colonization within the bumble bee gut and implications for bumble bee health.
Ben Sadd. Associate Professor of Infectious Disease Ecology at Illinois State University
Kate Stanley. Kate is an undergraduate student starting working on general projects in our group.
Sydney Szwed. Sydney is a MS student interested in topics related to ecological immunology. Sydney is a co-advised student with Prof. Scott Sakaluk.
Ravi Timsina. Ravi is a PhD student interested in pollinator health and social insects. In his MS at Tribhuvan University he studied how multiple stressors influence honey bee hygienic behavior. You can read more about Ravi’s interests here: https://insectsociety.com.
Past students and members
Laura Rengifo. Laura was a MS student interested in behavioral ecology, sexual conflict and selection, and evolution of nuptial gift provisioning. Laura was a co-advised student with Prof. Scott Sakaluk. She completed her MS thesis on genotype-by-environment effects on the expression of nuptial gift proteins in 2024.
Justin Palmer. Justin was an undergraduate honors student and worked to survey pathogens and parasites in declining bumble bee species and the health of their communities. He successfully completed his thesis in 2023 and is now aiming for Pharmacy School.
Bert Foquet. Bert was a postdoctoral research associate co-advised with Prof. Scott Sakaluk. He worked on the evolution of sexual conflict surrounding nuptial gifts in decorated crickets from a molecular perspective.
Logan Sauers. Logan was a PhD student studying the interactions between bumble bees and their beneficial gut microbes. Logan previously successfully completed his MS in the group in 2018. He is now a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Kat Coyte at the University of Manchester, UK.
Teni Shosanya. Teni was an undergraduate honors student studying the interactions between bumble bees and their beneficial gut microbes, and the role that host immunity may have in colonization. She is now working at Stanford University.
Ashley Tessnow. Ashley was a postdoctoral research associate co-advised with Dr. Greg Sword at Texas A&M University. She studies the population genomics and dispersal patterns of fall armyworms across the US. She is broadly interested in applying our understanding of the ecology and physiology of pest and beneficial insects to enhance the sustainability of agricultural systems.
Megan Grant. Megan was an undergraduate honor student working on the role of cricket nuptial gift proteins in sexual conflict. She used RNAi to unravel the molecular underpinnings of female manipulation by males. She successfully graduated and moved to a PhD at Vanderbilt University.
Sydney Bronson. Sydney was an undergraduate student assisting with research on bumble bee and microbe interactions. She is now working on PA school.
Jack McKermitt. Jack was a MS student studying sexual conflict in decorated crickets. He worked to understand how sexual conflict can affect the evolution of male investment into reproductive effort. Jack was a co-advised student with Prof. Scott Sakaluk.
Bryan Sierra-Rivera. Bryan was a MS student studying the bumble bee microbiota and its effect on host health. He had a particular interest in how host responses can mediated specificity in colonization. Bryan is currently working for an Agri-Biotech.
Elyse McCormick. Elyse was a MS student studying bumble bee pollinator health and the role of co-infections in changing infection outcomes. She is now a PhD student at UMASS Amherst with Dr. Lynn Adler.
Will Kuna. Will was an ISU undergraduate who worked on projects revolving around sexual conflict in decorated crickets. His honors thesis focused on investment into nuptial gift production depending on evolutionary history, using evolutionary selection regime lines. Will successfully graduated in 2023.
Audrey Harrod. Audrey was an ISU undergraduate honors student who successfully graduated in 2022. She worked on projects investigating threats to bumble bee health, and how pesticide exposures may affect parasite transmission.
Liv Cohen. Liv was an undergraduate student working in a lab maintenance and research assistance position with bumble bees.
Maria Jose Albo. Maria was a visiting researcher from Uruguay. She studies behavioral ecology of gift-giving in spiders. Find out more about here work on her webpage.
Ruben Martin-Blazquez. Ruben was a postdoctoral research associate co-advised with Prof. Sydney Cameron at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He worked on gene expression of various bumble bee species upon exposure to pesticides and parasites.
Toby Bassingthwaite. Toby was an undergraduate student working in a lab maintenance position, and was particularly focused on bumble bee rearing and understanding host-microbe interactions.
Ian Rines. Ian was a graduate student studying nuptial gifts in decorated crickets. He investigated the sexual conflict surrounding proteins that males feed to females via these gifts. Ian was a co-advised student with Prof. Scott Sakaluk.
Abe Martinez. Abe was a Biological Sciences undergraduate and STEM Alliance (previously LSAMP) mentee. He completed his honors thesis on bumble bee-parasite interactions and diet. After graduating he entered a PhD program in cancer biology a University of Colorado Denver.
Earon Grinage. Earon was an undergraduate in Biological Sciences working on bumble bee gut microbes and their role in bee health. After his graduation he entered a biomedical PREP program at the University of Illinois Chicago and then to an MD PhD.
Alison Fowler. Alison, a PhD student in Lynn Adler’s group at UMASS Amherst, and was visiting scholar in our group. She is interested in how diet, particularly pollen influences bumble bee health by affecting immunity and infection.
Kristin Duffield. Kristin was a PhD and then post-doctoral researcher studying life history theory in decorated crickets. She investigated the intrinsic state and the environmental contexts for male cricket terminal investment. She is now a post-doctoral researcher at the USDA in Peoria, IL.
Kylie Hampton. Kylie was a MS student studying reproduction and immunity in decorated crickets. Kylie is now a research lab technician at the USDA in Peoria, IL.
Mikey Williams. Mikey was an undergraduate working in the group under the Noyce Scholarship Program for Biology Education in Summer 2019. He focused on interactions between hosts and their beneficial gut microbes.
Kerrigan Tobin. Kerrigan defended her MS thesis in April 2019. She investigated how shifting temperatures influence immune investment and infection outcomes in a bumble bee trypanosome parasite system. She is now a research lab technician in a bee lab at the USDA in Logan, UT.
Diniz Ferreira. Diniz was a visiting undergraduate student from the Federal University of Pelotas, Brazil, in January-March 2019. Diniz is now back in Brazil completing his undergraduate and a project on niche modelling.
Evan Palmer Young. Evan has been a collaborator on a number of projects about the influence of phytochemicals on the bumble bee parasite Crithidia bombi. He was also a visiting scholar in the group in 2017. Evan’s homepage.
Shannon Barbarek. Shannon was an undergraduate working on refining cricket hemocyte assays. She graduated in Spring 2019, and joined the Gatto/Wilksinson labs as an MS student to pursue her passion for pathogenic microbes.
Rachel Mandes. Rachel ws an ISU undergraduate who helped study the interactions between the bumble bee immune response, beneficial bumble bee microbes, and heatwaves. Rachel graduated in August 2018.
Corinne Letendre. Corinne is a PhD student advised by Prof. John Hunt at the University of Western Sydney. She visited the group in 2018 to work on techniques and ecological immunology of decorated crickets.
Madeline Hallahan. Madeline worked on the bumble bee system. As an ISU Biology Education major and was the recipient of a prestigious Noyce Scholarship.
Mitchell Czerwinski. Mitchell worked as an undergraduate researcher on coinfection dynamics in our bumble bee and trypanosome system, and then carried out his senior thesis on interactions between pesticide exposure and immunity. Mitchell graduated in 2016.
Marc Ashford. Marc was an ISU undergraduate and an LS-AMP mentee working on a collaborative endeavour taking a comparative look at immune responses across Hymenoptera. Marc graduated in 2016 as and undergraduate, and in 2018 received is MS.
Ellie Hart. Ellie was an ISU undergraduate student. She worked in the group with bee care and maintenance, and assisting in projects on bumble bees and their parasites. Ellie graduated successfully in 2016, and entered the graduate program at Northern Illinois University.
Adam Frank. Adam was an ISU undergraduate who quantified infection loads as part of a project on coinfection dynamics in bumble bees. Adam graduated in 2016.
Aline Fauser-Misslin. Aline was a PhD student based at the University of Bern. She investigated how both pesticides and parasites influence crucial colony level and individual traits in bumble bees. Aline graduated in 2014 and started a position assessing pesticide risk assessment.
Steffanie Cain. Steffanie was an ISU undergraduate student working to understand how perception of mating possibilities influences immune investment of decorated crickets (Gryllodes sigillatus). She graduated from ISU in 2014.
Joe Oremus. Joe was an ISU undergraduate student studying Aedes mosquito immunity. He focused on temporal dynamics of immunity following a standard immune challenge.
Michelle Alvarez. Michelle was an Agriculture major undergraduate and an LS-AMP mentee. She was involved in a project on temproal dynamics of coinfection in the bumble bee system. Michelle graduated from ISU in 2015.
Christina Jester. Christina was an ISU undergraduate student in Biology education. She worked in the group for over a year and a half helping with bee care and maintenance, and assisting in projects on bumble bees and their parasites. She really loves bees! Christina graduated in Biology Education in 2016.