Directors & Founders
Amy Lu is a Director of the project. Dr. Lu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University. (...more...)
Noah Snyder-Mackler is a Director of the project. Dr. Snyder-Mackler is an Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences and Center for Evolution & Medicine at Arizona State University. (...)
India Schneider-Crease is a co-founder and director of the project. She received her PhD from the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University, advised by Dr. Charles Nunn and Dr. Leslie Digby. Her research focuses on understanding the physiological, sociocultural, and ecological drivers of disease ecology and zoonotic disease emergence, using taeniid tapeworms infecting geladas as a model system. In her free time, she works on facilitating community-based conservation initiatives in Ethiopia and climbing rocks.
Field team
US support staff
Lorin Hutchings is a lab technician for the Worms Gone Wild lab at ASU. He received his BS in Anthropology with a minor in Art History from ASU in December 2023. In his free time, he enjoys cooking, playing music, spending time with Sylvester (cat to the right), and taking pictures. You can see his art gallery at @hutchiings on instagram.
Postdocs
Jacob Feder is a PhD candidate in the Interdepartmental Doctoral Program in Anthropological Sciences (IDPAS) at Stony Brook University, advised by Amy Lu.
In 2015, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and Music from Wesleyan University. He is broadly interested in the life history, social relationships, and development of non-human primates. His dissertation research aims to draw links between social bondedness, physiological stress, and immune outcomes in juvenile geladas. In his spare time, he enjoys playing bass guitar, reading, and watching Jeopardy. You can read more on his personal website [https://jacobfeder.weebly.com/], and you can follow him on Twitter @jacobafeder.
Graduate Students
Brooklynn Scott is an Evolutionary Biology PhD candidate in the SMack Lab at Arizona State University with Dr. Noah Snyder-Mackler. Previously, Brooklynn completed her BS in Anthropology at the University of Utah where she worked on a project studying variation in social behavior by looking at genetic variants across the macaque phylogeny.Brooklynn is broadly interested in using evolutionary genetics/genomics to study genetic variation and adaptive traits. Her current research focuses on using gelada population history to delve deeper into karyotype differences between groups. She is also interested in gelada specific adaptive traits, particularly those pertaining to their extreme high-altitude environment.
Natalia is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University, advised by Dr. Amy Lu. She received her bachelor's degree in Biology at the University of the Andes in Colombia in 2019. After this, she studied woolly monkeys in the Amazon rainforest and chimpanzees in Uganda. She worked as the Cognitive Evolution Group lab manager at the University of Michigan from 2021 to 2023, conducting behavioral and cognition research on semi-free-ranging rhesus macaques and chimpanzees. She is interested in the effects of maternal and early environment on the development of individual differences in behavior. Natalia loves coding and primate fieldwork. She likes playing guitar, reading, and biking in her free time.
Medhavi Verma is a PhD student in the Global Health program in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at ASU, advised by Dr. India Schneider-Crease. Hailing from New Delhi, India, she moved to the US to attend Washington University in St. Louis in 2018, where she majored in Biology and minored in Psychology. As a member of the Ben-Shahar Lab, she explored the gene-brain-behavior relationship in glial cholinergic receptors. After graduating, she joined the Bracewell Lab at Indiana University where she studied chromosomal evolution and speciation in flies, beetles, and fungi. Medhavi is broadly interested in disease and behavioral ecology, human-wildlife interaction, and conservation. Outside of the lab, she enjoys cooking, crocheting, reading and re-watching sitcoms. You can find her on Twitter @Medhavi_Verma17.
Lucia is a PhD student in the Department of Anthropology at Stony Brook University, advised by Dr. Amy Lu. She received her bachelor's degree in Human Evolutionary Biology at the Stony Brook University in 2019. From 2020-2023, she worked as a Clinical Research Coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania for the Maternal Fetal Medicine Research Program, carrying out pregnancy research studies with human subjects. She is interested in biological mechanisms of developmental plasticity, and the effects of early-life environment on later-life health. In her free time, Lucia enjoys crocheting, dancing ballet, and spending time with her cat.
Sophia is a PhD student in the Evolutionary Anthropology program at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, affiliated with both the Institute of Human Origins and the Center for Evolution and Medicine. She is co-advised by Dr. Joan Silk and Dr. India Schneider-Crease. Originally from Austin, Texas, Sophia earned her BS in Biology and Anthropology from Texas State University. During her time at Texas State, she worked with Dr. Jill Pruetz to study the impact of adult female density on feeding associated behaviors within subgroups of a spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) community at the Camaquiri Conservation Initiative in Limón, Costa Rica. Additionally, she worked in the Kang Lab, where she helped to better characterize a small RNA molecule known as a tRNA-derived fragment and its role in systemic acquired resistance in Arabidopsis thaliana. Her graduate research brings together her interests in molecular biology and primatology. In the Worms Gone Wild Lab, she broadly focuses on how sociality, stress, and infectivity affect health outcomes in geladas, using immunogenetic approaches to explore these dynamics. Outside of work, you can find her running, hiking, buying house plants in excess, or cuddled up on the couch with her cat! Connect with her on twitter or linkedin @sophiakottke.
Undergraduate Researchers
Maya Saroff is a BS candidate in Biological Sciences: Genetics, Cell and Developmental Biology and a dual MS candidate in Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) at Arizona State University, advised by Dr. India Schneider-Crease. She is interested in viral discovery, disease ecology, and evolutionary biology as a whole. Her undergraduate honors thesis aims to explore new viruses identified in geladas to understand disease ecology, transmission, and evolutionary relationships between gelada-identified viral serotypes and those of other primates and animals. In her free time, she enjoys being active and spending time with friends and family.
Tiffany Duong is a second-year undergraduate biomedical sciences/EvMed major at Arizona State University. She is currently assisting with the Simien Mountains Gelada Research Project. She works with hospice and mild to moderate dementia patients and is interested in how gut parasites and social factors may affect the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. She intends to pursue developmental pediatrics. In her free time, she plays electric guitar, goes to concerts, and utterly obliterates horror games.