Graduate Research in Biology

Projects include: 1. Mobile Making afterschool STEM project with Fresno Unified School District (FUSD): Dr. Hansen has created an afterschool STEM program for FUSD youth in grades 4-6. Fresno State students enrolled in Service-Learning classes visit school sites 5x each semester to facilitate a creative STEM activity that allows youth to make something (i.e., balloon race cars, light-up greeting cards, robots). Research investigates the impact of this experience on both the FUSD youth and Fresno State student facilitators through quantitative (surveys) and qualitative (e.g., observatons, student projects) data. Interested students can assist with the ongoing data collection/analysis and/or assist in developing creative STEM activities for youth. This project is funded by the National Science Foundation; some funding is available for student research assistants.

2. 3D-printing & Fabrication: This project seeks to explore ways that technology and fabrication equipment (i.e., 3D-printing) can be used to enhance life science education acros K-16+. For example, a student might prototype 3D-printing of differnet joints in the human body for use in educational spaces. While there is no funding available for this project, access to fabrication equipment will be provided. Previous experience working with fabrication equipment is preferred, but not required. 

Not accepting graduate students.

Not accepting graduate students.

Projects include: 1. Fungal ecology of oaks ecosystems in the Sierra Nevada foothills and Mountain, 2. Secondary metabolism of antibiotic producing fungi, 3. Edible truffle cultivation in California pecan orchards (pilot studies), 4. Microbial ecology and functional genomics of wetland restoration.

Projects include: 1. Predator-prey interactions in the carnivorous plant bladderwort, 2. Form-function relations, 3. Equity and inclusion in academia, case studies in academic publishing, 4. Using natural history collections for research, including history of coloniality.

Not accepting graduate students.

Projects include: 1. The effects of research ethics instruction on ethical research practices in undergraduate STEM students, 2. The ethical application of personal genomics in higher education,  3. The effects of various visual representations of DNA on undergraduate genetics student comprehension, 4. Mechanisms of paternal mitochondrial DNA inheritance in hybrids, 5. Influence of mitochondrial genetics on climate change adaptation, 6. Developing sensitive methods to detect biparental mitochondrial inheritance

Not accepting graduate students.

Long-read sequencing of metagenomic samples, including microbiomes. Engineering phages for phage therapy. (Usually recruited from my spring courses)

Ecoimmunology is an emerging interdisciplinary field of biology that integrates the study of evolutionary ecology and immunology. The field focuses on animals and how they interact with their environment and how these interactions influence their immune system. The discipline also explores how pathogens and parasites shape the evolutionary trajectories of an animal’s immune system. We look at factors such as habitat quality, resource availability, temperature, social interactions, and exposure to pollutants can influence an organism's immune function and its ability to combat diseases. Read about us at https://www.sladelab.com/. 

Climate change physiology, hormonal regulation of reproduction and invasive species.

Plant evolution, plant taxonomy, population genetics/genomics, phylogenetics, and natural history collection curation. Projects include: 1. Comparing the genomics and physiology of related agriculturally weedy and non-weedy species of amaranths, and science outreach via iNaturalist, 2. Floristics and herbarium curation. Grant funding may be available for graduate students.

Identification of amino acids critical for the function of cAMP receptor protein, a model bacterial transcription factor (DNA binding and transcriptional activation functions). Projects include: 1. Creating site-directed mutants for the CRP protein to replace original amino acid targets with functionally different amino acids, 2.  Measuring DNA binding and/or transcritpional activation activities for the mutants to determine if the original amino acids are important for DNA binding and/or transcriptional activation.