Students
Currently there are two graduate students and one undergraduate student working in the parasitology lab at OSU. There were five students—one graduate student and four undergraduate students—working in the Parasitology lab during my time at UNK . As usual most of their projects are based at Cedar Point Biological Station in Ogallala NE, but we are adding field sites in Oklahoma.
Heather Tracy, MS student
Heather received her B.S. in Biology and minor in Chemistry from the University of Nebraska at Kearney. As an undergraduate Heather was a teaching assistant for Evolution, and won the Best Research Presentation for work on Characterization of Invertebrates of Mangrove Swamp in Vieques, Puerto Rico under the direction of Dr. Marc Albrecht (UNK). Heather’s current project will involve looking at parasite community structure of larval amphibians (tadpoles and salamanders) from eastern and western Nebraska. As you can tell from her photograph, Heather is a true animal lover, and is interested in pursuing veterinary school after completion of her masters. Although we are hoping she will become a true parasitologist! Heather presented some of her data at the 39th Rocky Mountain Conference of Parasitologists held at Cedar Point Biological Station September 18-20th and received the Datus M. Hammond Award for the Best Poster presented by a Graduate Student. See Heather’s poster.
Mohammed S. Vhora MS Student
Mohammed decided to pursue graduate work on frog parasites in our laboratory at OSU. Mohammed comes to us from John Janovy’s lab at UNL where he took field parasitology and general parasitology and worked with Gabe Langford on the co-occurrence of Haematoloechus complexus and Rhabdias joaquinensis in the lungs of the plains leopard frog (Rana blairi). Mohammed presented his undergraduate research at the Southwestern Association of Parsitologists meeting on April 17, 2009 and won the undergraduate student competition. His talk was entitled Co-occurrence of Haematoloechus complexus (Trematoda: Haematoloechidae) and Rhabdias joaquinensis (Nematoda: Rhabdiasidae) in the plains leopard frog (Rana blairi). We are very excited for Mohammed to join the parasitology laboratory at OSU.
Austin Kubat, BS student
Austin is pursuing a BS in Microbiology at OSU. He took the General Parasitology course (Zoo 4103) in the fall of 2008 and got hooked on parasites. Now he is working on the host specificity of two nematomorph species (African and North American) in six species of freshwater snails. Just in the last six weeks, Austin has collected a large data set, and is now working on, data analysis and numerous hypotheses to test some of his observations. Austin presented his research at the 42nd annual meeting of the Southwestern Association of Parasitologists on April 17, 2009. See poster.
Fomer UNK Students
Ashlee Hartman, BS student
Because of Ashlee’s experience working at the vet clinic, she decided to take me up on her 420 project looking at dog parasites from humane society dogs across Nebraska. Ashlee just ran her first sample of a puppy from Kearney and he was infected with Toxocara canis and Cystoisospora canis. Way to go Ash! Every since that sample, Ashlee has been braving falling rocks from the sealing in the lab (Bruner Hall of Science is being remodeled), while she is spinning fecal samples. Ashlee presented some of her data at the 39th Rocky Mountain Conference of Parasitologists held at Cedar Point Biological Station September 18-20th and received the William C. Marquardt Award for Best Poster presented by an Undergraduate Student. See Ashlee’s poster.
Katie Langenfeld, BS student
Katie Langenfeld is one of the BRIN scholars on campus! The BRIN program was created to expose students to serious biomedical research, build a statewide biomedical research infrastructure between undergraduate and graduate institutions and to strengthen undergraduate institution's infrastructure and increase its capacity to conduct cutting-edge biomedical and behavioral research. Last year Katie spent some time working on plant cell biology in Dr. Paul Twigg’s lab (UNK), and is now joining the parasitology lab to work on the innate immunity of larval damselflies to frog lung fluke metacercariae.
Andrew Prososki, BS student
Andrew took Biology I as a freshman and received an A in the course! Andrew, or Drew as he likes to be called, then decided that he wanted to try his hands at research. His project will involve looking at three different families of damselflies for parasites and comparing their body condition. Andrew wrote his first grant for $3,000 to the UNK Summer Student Research Program for his study and got funded. Way to go Drew! Because of his interest in the outdoors we think that Drew will make a superb field biologist.
Morgan Kellogg, BS student
For her 420 project, Morgan decided to examine host specificity of tadpoles in three different families of anurans to the trematode Glypthelmins pennsylvaniensis. Glypthelmins pennsylvaniensis is an intestinal fluke of treefrogs in the genus Pseudacris and cercariae infect tadpoles where they form metacercariae. Frogs become infected with adult worms when they metamorphose and ingest their skin. Her work will involve infecting snails, and tadpoles, and doing quite a bit of histological work to see what happens to the metacercariae?
Thora, the lab mascot!
Thora in Action!!
Although Thora has only been the lab mascot for a few weeks she has managed to collect the following parasites for our collections: Dermacentor variabilis the American Dog Tick, Amblyomma americanum The Lone Star Tick; Female Ctenocephalides felis. Way to go Thora! Unfortunately, Mrs. Bolek will not let us keep cultures of these critters on Thora.
“One must be able to identify the different kinds of organisms encountered and know their habits and habitats; the more one knows about the food and life of these animals…. the more success one is likely to have…..Exceptional physical endurance is an asset for one must follow the maxim…..Above all, one must have command of his or her time for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.” Wendell Krull (Letter to Miriam Rothschild, 1953)