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).

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! Gwen will start working on her Ph.D. in the Fall 2007 at the University of South Florida in the laboratory of Dr. Gordon Fox http://boojum.cas.usf.edu/index.pl/home