Lab News
August 2025
Anneliese Roth and Oscar Sanchez present their research at the summer STEAM symposium.
June 2025
Anneliese Roth and Oscar Sanchez join the lab for independent summer research projects.
Publication Announcements!
Xue Her publishes his dissertation research in Integrative and Comparative Biology
Her, X., & Slade, J. W. G. (2025). The effect of urbanization and sampling date on blood immunophysiology and haemosporidian parasitemia in Cardueline finches. Integrative and Comparative Biology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaf103
Research on TLR-mediated mate choice in song sparrows.
Doucette, S. A. N., Potvin, D. A., Slade, J. W. G., Watson, M. J., Niroshan, J. J., & MacDougall-Shackleton, E. A. (2025). Assortative mating at the innate immune locus TLR3 in song sparrows: Opposites do not attract. Animal Behaviour, 224, 123188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2025.123188
May 2025
Xue Her finishes his MS thesis and exit seminar. Xue and Alexandria receive their MS degree and are hooded at commencement. Katherine Moua and LeAnne Gip receive their BS degree, also.
April 2025
Publication Announcement! Going back to the days of my MS —
Barber, C., Slade, J., Hornsby, M. et al. Age and reproductive strategies in European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). J Ornithol 166, 371–381 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-024-02233-5
March 2025
Publication Announcement! Congrats to Slade Lab alumnus, Lindsey Biehler, on publishing her first section of her dissertation in Integrative and Comparative Biology on “Cardueline Finches Vary in Constitutive Innate Immunity Against a Harmful Strain of Avian Salmonella”
February 2025
Conference Announcement! The Slade Lab “takes over” The Western Wildlife Society meeting in Visalia, California. The following people presented:
Dr. Joel Slade presents Lindsey Biehler’s work.
Katherine Moua presents a poster on the research from a CURE she did in BIOL 137 - Ecology and Evolution of Birds— on white-crowned sparrow feather mites.
Honors Student, LeAnne Gip presents a poster on her honors research on white-crowned sparrow MHC class I evolution.
Slade Lab alum, Alexandria Singh, presents a poster on her MS work on honest signals of MHC class I in male house finches.
Okposio Emmanuel presents his current MS research on how urbanization affects MHC class I variability in house finches.
Xue Her presents his current MS research on how urbanization affects heterophil/lymphoctye ratios and the spread of avian vector-borne parasites in house finches.
January 2025
Welcome to the new MS student, Katherine Moua to the lab, and the start of the field season!
Conference Announcement! Two MS students present their NSF-funded research at the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.
Okposio Emmanuel presents his current MS research on how urbanization affects MHC class I variability in house finches.
Xue Her presents his current MS research on how urbanization affects heterophil/lymphoctye ratios and the spread of avian vector-borne parasites in house finches.
November 2024
Alexandria Singh successfully passes her thesis and exit seminar. Congratulations, Alexandria, and congratulations on your position as a biologist at Cal Trans.
October 2024
Publication announcement! Van Laar TA, Greenberg JM, Theis KR, Whittaker DJ, Slade JWG. 2024. 16S rRNA gene sequencing of microbiota from the preen oil and cloaca of chipping sparrows (Spizella passerina). Microbiol Resour Announc 13:e00576-24.
https://doi.org/10.1128/mra.00576-24
June 2024
Xue Her, Okposio Emmanuel, and Franke start their NSF-funded summer research project!
May 2024
Lindsey Biehler graduates with her MS degree and Esther Fernandez wins the biology department outstanding thesis award. Biehler accepts a PhD position at New Mexico State University for fall 2024. Congrats, Lindsey! We will miss you.
April 2024
Okposio Emmanuel and LeAnne Gip both earn a ~$1000 Faculty Sponsored Student Research Award. Lindsey Biehler, Alexandria Singh, and Andy Cabrera present their research at the 45th Central California Research Symposium where Biehler won a best graduate student talk on TLR4 genetic variation in Cardueline finches.
March 2024
Congratulations to Lindsey Biehler for being accepted to pursue a PhD in Molecular Biology & Interdisciplinary Life Sciences at New Mexico State University to study virus evolutionary ecology. We’re so proud of your journey and success!
Field work is well underway, with many community volunteers installing bird feeders at their homes to help us recruit finches for our NSF-funded research project. This work would not have been successful if it were not for our pioneering finch project MS students, Okposio Emmanuel, Xue Her, and Franke — you folks are amazing.
December 2023
We implemented our first Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) for Molecular Ecology (BIOL 182). Congrats to the 14 students who researched avian immunogenetics and delivered excellent talks.
AUGUST 2023
Welcome new Slade Lab MS Students - Okposio Emmanuel, Franke, and Xue Her!
Slade Lab members Lindsey Biehler & Parmeet Kaur traveled to London, Ontario, Canada, and gave fantastic oral presentations at AOS and SCO-SOC 2023 combined meeting.
May 2023
Many congratulations this month. Congratulations to Parmeet Kaur for graduating with a BS honors in biology. Also, congratulations to lab students, Chaim Rabbas, Zachary Padilla, and Clarence Curtis for graduating with their bachelor’s degrees. Congratulations to Parmeet Kaur and MS student Lindsey Biehler for being awarded an American Ornithological Society (AOS) travel grant to attend the AOS and SCO joint meeting in London, Ontario, Canada this August.
April 2023
Congratulations to Slade Lab members, MS student Lindsey Biehler, for winning the UCSF Oral Presentation award, and undergraduate RISE Student Zachary Padilla for winning the Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology undergraduate poster award, at the Central California Research Symposium at Fresno State.
February 2023
Grant Announcement! Dr. Joel Slade (PI) and two colleagues (co-PIs) received a ~$468,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) New Faculty Enhancement Grant for our research proposal titled “BRC-BIO: Bird feeders in the city: the effect of urbanization on ecological immunology and microbiology in cardueline finches”
The Slade Lab is currently looking to provide funding for two MS students for this grant. See details here.
January 2023
Publication Announcement! My colleagues and I have published work on a very interesting experiment on the microbiome of dark-eyed junco’s uropygial glands. It’s published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
Whittaker D. J., Atyam A., Burroughs N. A., Greenberg J. M., Hagey T. J., Novotny M. V., Soini H. A., Theis K. R., Van Laar T. A., Slade J. W. G. (2023). Effects of short-term experimental manipulation of captive social environment on uropygial gland microbiome and preen oil volatile composition. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 10, 1027399. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.1027399
October 2022
MS students Alexandria Singh and Ramon Lomeli each receive an $1000 Faculty Sponsored Student Research Award to go towards their research projects!
Publication Announcement! Slade Lab MS Student Lindsey Biehler co-authors a publication on the genome of a strain of avian Salmonella
Van Laar, T. A., Biehler, L., & Slade, J. W. G. (2022). Draft genome, sequence of a multidrug-resistant strain of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium isolated from a pine siskin (Spinus pinus). Microbiology Resource Announcements, 0(0), e00982-22. https://doi.org/10.1128/mra.00982-22
August 2022
Slade Lab research featured in Sierra News Online
may 2022
Lindsey Biehler (MS Student) and Parmeet Kaur (BS (hon) student) each awarded CSUPERB Travel Grant ($1,500 each)
Slade Lab receives a ~$15,000 CSUPERB New Investigators Seed Grant in collaboration with Dr. Tricia Van Laar
Esther Fernandez (MS Student), Lindsey Biehler (MS Student), Drew Volpp-Garcia (MS Student), and Parmeet Kaur (BS (hon) student) each received a travel grant from The Wilson Ornithological Society
april 2022
Esther Fernandez (MS Student) wins a presentation award at the Central California Research Symposium
June 2021
Esther Fernandez (MS Student) awarded at CSUPERB 2021-2022 Graduate Student Research Restart Program Grant ($7000)
December 2020
Kayla Gussman (MS Student) receives a $1000 Faculty Sponsored Student Research Award
December 2019
Esther Fernandez (BS student) and Bailey J-Sanchez (BS student) each receive a $1000 Faculty Sponsored Student Research Award