Theresa successfully defended her PhD thesis in September. She is currently doing post doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Michel Slotman (http://insects.tamu.edu/people/faculty/slotmanm.cfm).

Adrienne received her PhD in December 2010. She is currently doing post doctoral research at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland.

Amanda worked in the lab for 2 years. She did an honors thesis on the effects of the gene Dscam on the immune response to parasitoid wasps. Amanda is taking a year off before going to medical school.

Luz was a double major, earning a B.S. in Biology and a B.A. in Psychology. After graduation Luz worked as a technician in the lab for a year. She was involved in numerous projects from field work on the parasitoid wasp/Drosophila community to mapping genes affecting life span. Oh, and she also kept the laboratory running like a well oiled machine. She is currently thriving in her second year of medical school at Drexel.

Leanne worked on the genetic basis of life span and immunosenescence. In her typical way, this was Leanne's first posting for this site "My name is Leanne Foster, I am currently in med school. I have no life. Don't go to med school." After a break, here was her more heartfelt offering: "Hi my name is Leanne Foster. I worked in Dr. Jeff Leips' lab for three glorious years in which he, and every other member of the lab, helped me grow intellectually and personally. I graduated from UMBC in May of 2006 with a B.S. in Biological Sciences, and am currently a first year at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. I am also a volunteer at Project PLASE, a shelter/clinic for AIDS patients who are homeless."

Hir worked in the lab as an undergraduate and as a technician and pretty much has helped out in all of the research projects at some point. She is currently a Medical Technologist at UMB.

Anna is a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who worked on an independent research project in the summer of 2003. She was adopted as an official lab member at that time. She is originally from Staten Island, New York and is pursuing a double major in Biology and Exercise and Sport Science. Anna is involved in various other activities at UNC-Chapel Hill including ACL injury research, Psychology research, and volunteering at the NC Children's Hospital. After graduation, she would like to enter medical school.

Jo worked as an undergraduate doing research on the genetic basis of variation in life span. She was famous for working the midnight shift and generally keeping everyone on their "intellectual toes" in lab meetings. She is currently a graduate student in the Zwaka Lab at Baylor College of Medicine. Her current research focuses on characterization of a novel pathway regulating embryonic stem cell pluripotency.

Dawn was a member of the AMB Program and did her thesis work in our lab looking at the effect of expression variation in genes in the catecholamine pathway on life span. She is currently a laboratory technician at U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bee Research Lab http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/site_main.htm?modecode=12-75-05-00

Karen started as a technician in my lab and ended up getting her masters. She worked with an undergraduate in the lab, Ioanna Paiusi, to characterize, for the first time, the genetic basis of natural variation in age-specific immune response. Karen is currently a Ph.D. student at UC Riverside in the Zuk laboratory.

Syed was one of the few males that survived the Leips laboratory, probably because he had a good sense of humor. He did two years of field work on the parasitoid project and was also working on the genetic basis of larval foraging behavior. He is currently doing a Post Bac at NIH in Bethesda and going on interviews for medical school.

Katharine spent a summer as an EMBARC student doing research on the genetic basis of variation in the effects of caloric restriction and age-specific immune response. She has also been formally adopted as a lab member and will be forever remembered for her bread pudding. Here is an update from Katharine on her status: "I graduated with a B.S. in Molecular Biology from Grove City College in 2005 and am presently completing my M.S. in Physician Assistant Studies at DeSales University. I will graduate in August of 2007. I am geographically unsure of where I will accept a job, but I am looking at either surgery--specifically transplant--or emergency medicine."

Kate initiated our work on the importance of parasitoid wasps as an agents of selection on larval behaviors of Drosophila. Kate earned several awards for her work in the lab including an Undergraduate Research Award from UMBC and Best Student Poster at the IX International Workshop on Parasitoids held in Wales, UK. Of note, Kate was the ONLY undergraduate in attendance. She will start graduate school at the University of Illinois Champagne-Urbana in Alison Bell's lab http://www.life.uiuc.edu/bell/

Kathy worked on fine mapping genes regulating age-specific fecundity and also helped with the age-specific immune response experiments.

Gina worked on a number of projects in the lab including sorting and identifying thousands of flies and wasps from our field work. Her research project was focused on understanding parasitoid host choice. Gina is currently working as a laboratory technician at Johns Hopkins University while she figures out what she wants to study in graduate school (chemistry or biology).

Ruth worked in the lab for 2 years and helped with a variety of projects. Her own project was focused on understanding the role of the gene syndecans in producing natural variation in life span. She currently works at Walter Reed Hospital and is headed for medical school next year.

Irene worked for over two years in the lab, and completed an Honor's Thesis in Biology on her research examining the role of natural variation in the gene S6kinase in age-specific immune response. She is headed to medical school next year.

Sameen worked closely with my graduate student Adrienne Starks for a year in the lab. As far as I can tell she kept Adrienne's project running while she was here. She is currently working at a biotech company while she prepares for medical school.

Gwen worked in the laboratory for two years, the first year as an undergraduate researcher and the second as a research technician (she completed a B.S. in Biology at UMBC in the Spring of 2006). Gwen was primarily involved in our research to understand the genetic basis of variation in age-related changes in the immune response and fecundity. She also kept the lab running smoothly and even designed the logo for our laboratory t-shirt!

Ruby worked on the role of learning in parasitoid host choice for two years as an undergraduate our lab. We are currently writing a manuscript based on her work for publication. Ruby started the MD/PhD program at Penn State in Fall of 2010.

Won worked on a genome wide association project to identify SNPs affecting age-specific immunity. Won is currently applying for Dental School.

Xin worked on a variety of projects with Mary Durham in our laboratory. She is currently running her own business but intends on applying to medical school in the near future.

Willis worked with Mary Durham on many aspects of her work. He also did research on a novel phenotype of Drosophila that we are trying to get a new graduate student interested in! Willis plans on applying to graduate school to do research on developmental biology as soon as he recovers from his graduation party...

Mara graduated in December 2009 and will soon start a post bac at NIH working on dietary influences on aging in her favorite model organism, the fruitfly (well, maybe second favorite, horses being her real favorite).

Keisha was a visiting student in our lab in the summer of 2009 and worked on the combined effects of diet, age and genotype on age specific immune response. We're hoping she'll come back to UMBC for graduate school.

Chris was helping Adrienne Starks on her project studying the genetic basis of age-related changes in life history, metabolic and immune response traits. He also did independent research mapping genes affecting age-specific immunity. Chris is currently a graduate student in microbiology at Johns Hopkins University.

Mike helped Adrienne Starks on her project studying the genetic basis of age-related changes in life history, metabolic and immune response traits. He also did independent research mapping genes affecting age-specific immunity. Mike is currently applying to medical school.

Hamsa was a high school student from Centennial High School who worked with me for two years. Her project examined the influence of diet on age-specific immunity. Hamsa is currently an undergraduate Meyerhoff Scholar at UMBC majoring in Biology. She is interested in doing research in the field of genetics after graduation.

Kimia worked with Mara Laslo and Theresa Hodges on mapping genes affecting larval immune defenses against parasitoid wasps. Kimia is currently in the Applied Molecular Biology masters program at UMBC.

Arunkumar worked with Adrienne Starks to characterize the genetic influence on age-specific life history, metabolic and immune response traits. He also worked on an independent project to identify the genetic basis of age specific immunity. Arunkumar intends to go to medical school.