Welcome Georg Fischer to the lab!

georg We are pleased to welcome Georg Fischer to the lab, our new Postdoctoral Scholar.  Georg originally hails from Germany, but more recently was a postdoc at the California Academy of Sciences for several years.  He is going to be taking a leading role in our projects on the biogeography, ecology, phylogeny, and systematics of the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole.  Georg has worked particularly on the Afrotropical and Malagasy Pheidole, and will continue that work but also put it in context of the major Old World Pheidole radiations.

Welcome Yoshi.

I’m delighted to welcome Dr. Masashi Yoshimura to our lab as a Staff Scientist. Yoshi is originally from Japan, but most recenlty comes to us from the California Academy of Sciences where he was a member of Brian Fisher’s lab for 5 years. Yoshi is one of the very few biologists in the world who studies ant male morphology. The vast majority of attention on the Ecology, Evolution, and taxonomy of ants focuses on the worker caste. He will be working on the Fijian male fauna, the broader evolution of ant males, and other biodiversity projects related to the Japanese fauna.

Yoshi_EconomoLab01

Nitish joins the lab.

We are happy to welcome our newest lab member, Nitish Narula, who comes highly recommended from the Avian phylogenomics group at NMSU.  Nitish is our new computing technician and will work on specimen and molecular databases, bioinformatics, and statistical data analyses.  He’s also got the best beard at OIST.  Welcome!

Nitish Narula

Welcome, John.

The lab recently expanded by one member.  We are excited o welcome John Deyrup to the team as a Research Technician.  John comes to us (most recently) from Rutgers University, where he did a thesis on Dictyoptera phylogenetics.  John has a great set of skills ranging from insect curation to molecular work and even some programming experience.    He is going to be working on all the projects going on in the lab in some capacity.