Jessica Blois
Jessica’s research focuses on how environmental and biological drivers shape responses of North American mammals and vegetation to past, present, and future climate changes. She got her B.S. at UC San Diego in 1996, where she majored in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution. After a few seasons working for the Forest Service, she went back to school and got her M.A. at Humboldt State University in 2005. She then went on to get her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University (2009), where she focused on understanding the response of California mammals to past climate change. She moved to UW-Madison to do a postdoc on vegetation responses to past climate change, after which she started her position at UC Merced in 2013.
Postdocs
Val Syverson
Val’s research broadly addresses the evolution of biotic interactions and their influence on body size and shape in two very different ecosystems (Middle Paleozoic crinoids and Pleistocene vertebrates), They also work on the maintenance and improvement of community scientific data infrastructure. They attended Caltech (B.S., Geology, 2008), then the University of Michigan (Ph.D., 2014), where they worked with Tomasz Baumiller on the evolution of defensive adaptations in crinoids as a response to changing predation pressures through the Phanerozoic. They did a postdoc at UW-Madison developing resources for the Paleobiology Database, xDD, and other data infrastructure, then worked for a few years at Clovis Community College teaching and developing open educational resources for other community college lab instructors. In their postdoctoral position at UC Merced, they are currently reassessing and improving chronologies for Neogene small mammal communities of North America using NeotomaDB and xDD.
Graduate students
Reina Warnert
Reina is a grad student in the Quantitative and Systems Biology graduate group and started her PhD at UC Merced in Fall 2020. She is interested in conservation paleobiology and the Sierra Nevada, and is working on small mammal community change in response to fire and climate in Yosemite National Park.
Laura Van Vranken
Laura is a grad student in the Quantitative and Systems Biology graduate group, and started her PhD at UC Merced in Fall 2016. She is interested in understanding the spatial ecology of species of management concern in the Sierra Nevada, such as western pond turtles, with an eye towards informing conservation decisions related to their management in Yosemite National Park. Laura is also an Aquatic Ecologist at Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park.
Valor Smallwood
Valor is in their first year of their PhD at UC Merced, in the Quantitative and Systems Biology graduate group. They are interested in researching the causes, effects, and mechanics of extinctions in deep time. Additionally, they want to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the geosciences, and sciences at large, to make science a more accessible career that considers multiple perspectives.
Staff
Nick Hoffman
email
Nick does community outreach for the Ethical Open Science for Past Global Change Data, a network of researchers who are working to implement ethical and open science principles in Quaternary data ecosystems. Before moving to Merced in 2023, he lived in Madison, WI, where he earned an MS doing interdisciplinary research in environmental history and historical ecology.
Undergraduates
Emma McCluskey. Emma is starting her 4th year as an ESS major and worked with Reina and Jessica on the Yosemite small mammals project in summer 2023! She is continuing in the lab in the 2023-24 academic year.
Alumni
Postdoctoral Scholars
Mairin Balisi, postdoctoral scholar, 2018-2022. website. Mairin is now the Augustyn Family Curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology.
Gio Rapacciuolo, postdoctoral scholar, 2017-2018. website. Gio is now Director of Applied Science Programs at NatureServe.
Sarah Brown, postdoctoral scholar, 2015-2016. website. Sarah is now is a Senior Environmental Scientist at the California Department of Water Resources.
Kaitlin Maguire, postdoctoral scholar, 2014-2015. website. Kaitlin went on to serve as the Executive Director at Idaho STEM Action Center.
Graduate Students
Corey Shaver, MS student, 2020-2022. Corey finished her MS in the lab in August 2022. She is now the lab manager for the Tierney lab at U. Arizona.
Robert Boria, PhD student, 2015-2021. Rob finished his PhD in the lab in May 2021. He secured the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology to work with Scott Edwards and Hopi Hoekstra at Harvard. Rob will be starting as an Assistant Professor at San Francisco State University in January 2024.
Kinsey Brock, Quantitative and Systems Biology PhD student, 2015-2021. Kinsey finished her PhD in the lab in May 2021. She secured the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology to work with Ian Wang at UC Berkeley. Read more here. Kinsey will be starting as an Assistant Professor at San Diego State University in 2024.
Danaan DeNeve Weeks, Quantitative and Systems Biology PhD student, 2014-2020. Danaan finished their PhD in the lab in December 2020 and then worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum.
Nate Fox, Environmental Systems PhD student, 2015-2020. Nate finished his PhD in the lab in August 2020. Read more about his dissertation research here. He is now the Associate Director at the South Dakota School of Mines Museum of Geology.
J. Eric Williams, Environmental Systems PhD student, 2013-2018. website. Eric finished his PhD in the lab in December 2018. He is now a Biology faculty member at Fayetteville Technical Community College.
Undergraduates
Esteban Correa, undergrad research assistant, summer 2023. Esteban is starting his 4th year at a BIO-EEB major and worked with Reina, Emma, and Jessica on the Yosemite small mammals project in summer 2023!
Daniela Alvarado Flores, undergrad research assistant, 2019 – 2021. B.S, 2021, in Earth Systems Science .
Joseph Veneracion, undergrad research assistant, 2017 – 2018. B.S. in Earth Systems Science. Joseph worked with Nate on the La Brea project while he was in the lab.
Aurora Trejo, undergrad research assistant, 2017 – 2018. B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Christopher Jorgensen, undergrad research assistant, 2014 – 2016. B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. He just finished a MS in Biology at CSU Fresno.
Andrea Pedraza, undergrad research assistant, 2015 – 2016. B.S in Biology with an emphasis in Molecular and Cell Biology
Angela Yu, undergrad research assistant, 2015 – 2016. B.S., Earth Systems Science
Joceline Santiago, undergrad research assistant, 2014 – 2016. B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Human Biology
Zara Batac-Bhatti, undergrad research assistant, 2014 – 2015. B.S in Biology with an emphasis in Human Biology
Juliane Liberto, undergrad research assistant, 2013 – 2014. B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Human Biology. She will be starting her PhD in Fall 2019.
Tiana Walker, undergrad research assistant, 2014. B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Human Biology
Stefanie Yupanqui, undergrad research assistant, 2014. B.S. in Biology with an emphasis in Human Biology
Blois Paleoecology Lab 