I grew up in Nebraska and spent as much time as possible outdoors, exploring every corner of our farm with my siblings. While getting my B.S. at Cornell University, I discovered how awesome birds are and after graduating I got to work on research projects studying Red-backed Fairy-wrens, Greater Prairie Chickens, and Piping Plovers. In 2020 I completed my PhD at Kansas State University in Dr. Alice Boyle’s lab where I studied how the abiotic environment influences the scope of sexual selection in Neotropical Manakins (Pipridae) using comparative and demographic methods, population genetic analyses, and behavioral experiments. I’m thrilled to be joining the lab as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow studying the Monarcha flycatcher system in the Solomon Islands. I will be combining studies of behavior and physiology with genomic data to determine what underlies the repeated evolution of black plumage in a population where both melanic and chestnut colored birds still exist and mate with each other. This window into the earliest stages of speciation is an amazing opportunity to understand how ecology, physiology, behavior, and selection interact to shape the evolutionary trajectories of organisms.

Elsie's personal website

I grew up in the metropolitan capital city of Hanoi, Vietnam; though interested in biology at a young age, I never thought I would be studying wildlife. I left home and earned a B.S. in Biology at Mercyhurst University, learning along the way that being a scientist is a viable career path. But my serendipitous encounter with ornithology did not come until 2019 after a failed attempt at graduate school; I started working with Dr. David Toews at Penn State University, where I eventually earned my PhD in 2024. My work at Penn State focused on geographic variation in vocalization of closely related species of North American parulid warblers (Parulidae), and how those variation correlate with their genomic variation and reflect their demographic histories. In the Uy lab, I will mainly work on the comparative genomics of multiple bowerbirds, particularly on the divergence of sexually selected traits such as bower-building and mating system. Exploring the genetic basis of these traits will contribute to the understanding of how sexual selection affects diversification in this group.

Lan-Nhi's personal website (under construction)