We’ve got some exciting transitions ahead of us in the Blois Lab!

• Reina successfully defended her PhD in May 2026. Congratulations Dr. Warnert!! Reina is headed to Cal Poly for a postdoc with Dr. Tim Bean and the Spatial Wildlife Ecology Lab.
• Jessica and the Blois Lab are moving! Jessica has accepted a position as Professor and the Donald R. Dickey Chair in Vertebrate Biology in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA, as of July 1. She will miss her colleagues and community at UC Merced, but is excited about the new opportunities ahead.

Great news to start off the year! The Blois lab had two papers accepted over the winter break. The first was a paper led by former PhD student Nate Fox, working with a great team to examine correspondence between small mammal isotope values and past climate at the La Brea Tar Pits. Then, former PhD student Rob Boria had his final PhD chapter accepted, examining the phylogeography of the Peromycus maniculatus species complex across the western US. Both papers are fully open access, thanks to the UC transformative agreements with Elsevier!

The Blois lab also officially welcomes Val Syverson, a new postdoc on the paleomodeling project we’re working on with Marta Jarzyna. Val officially started in November, but the UC strike disrupted their transition.

Coupled with the official start of the NSF FAIROS research coordination network, focusing on examining FAIR and CARE issues in paleobiological and zooarcheological resources, and a new class to teach as part of my ongoing NSF CAREER grant (Ecology in the Field and Lab), it’s shaping up to be a busy semester!