Dr. Jeff Lozier
Lab PI – Associate Professor
email: jlozier <at> ua.edu
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My own work tends to focus on projects with both applied and basic components, so I encourage students who are also interested in studying interesting ecological and evolutionary aspects of topics like conservation, invasive species, or pollination. Research in the lab will deal mostly with insects like bumble bees, aphids, and parasitoids, but projects span across all sorts of animals so people interested in applying genetic tools to their organism of interest should feel free to contact me. Come on and apply to the Department of Biological Sciences! 
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​Dr. Jeff Lozier’s Curriculum Vitae | Google Scholar

Dr. Sarthok Rahman
Sarthok started in the lab in January 2021, and will be working on linking gene expression, methylation, and physiological data to better understand thermal tolerance in bumble bees. Sarthok is an expert bioinformatician who is skilled at analyzing all sorts of sequencing data, but also really knowledgeable about organismal biology so can make meaningful interpretations of all that data. We are really excited to have him on board!
Sarthok’s Google Scholar Page

Sam Heraghty
PhD Student
Sam joined the lab in the Fall 2018 semester from New York, where he recently graduated from SUNY Geneseo. Sam has a history of working with bees for his undergraduate research project, in which he conducted a bee biodiversity survey of the Geneseo arboretum, very similar to our own recent studies at the UA Arboretum. Sam is now interested in working on population genetics of bees, and will be expanding our current work with montane Bombus by evaluating signatures of adaptation in different landscapes using whole genome sequencing.

Jamie Bucholz
PhD Student
Jamie is joining the lab in the Fall 2019 semester from Central Michigan, where she is doing her MS work on population genomics of the hickory nut mussel! Jamie will be our mussel population genomics whiz as part of our Dimensions of Biodiversity grant and will be doing RADseq across a large number of Unionid species in the southeast as a big comparative study.

Kelton Verble
PhD Student
Kelton is starting his PhD at UA in the Fall 2020 semester amongst the chaos of COVID. Kelton will be working on the genomics and epigenomics of thermal tolerance in bumble bees. Prior to joining the lab, Kelton worked on wolf genomics at the National Genomic Center for Wildlife and Fish Conservation and did his MS work at VA Tech working on mongoose population genetics. Mammals to bees you say? Well bees are big fuzzy insects that have some capacity for thermoregulation, so they’re like 2 steps away from mammals really.

Brandon Meadows
PhD Student
Brandon is a PhD student who came to the lab from Texas Tech in Fall 2023. Brandon will be conducting large scale bumble bee genomic sequencing across diverse species for population genomic analysis of color pattern evolution.

Emma Torija
PhD Student
Emma joined the lab in Spring 2023. Emma will be working on population genomics and genomic vulnerability in declining and stable bumble bee species, especially with the genome of Bombus pensylvanicus and several other species.

​Meaghan Pimsler (Postdoc, now a AAAS science policy fellow)
Jason Jackson (PhD student, Graduated 2019!)
Riley Lovejoy (MS student, PhD Just Graduated May 2017! Just Graduated again in May 2023!)
Sarah Duncan (PhD student, co-Chair with Leslie Rissler, Graduated December 2016!)
Peter Scott (PhD student, co-Chair with Leslie Rissler, Graduated December 2017!)
Justin Bagley (Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher, now at VA Commonwealth)
Maria Florencia Breitman (Visiting Postdoctoral Researcher, now at VA Commonwealth)

Current Students
Ava McKallip
Julia Vasconcellos
Caroline Lewis
Olivia Bruno

Graduated Alumni!
Sydney Cardoza (with Howeth)
Abby Weir
Jourdyn HortonCharles Pitsenberger
Clare Ols
Vanessa Marshall
Kyle Robinson (Med School)
Evan Dittmar (Med School)
Rebecca Dicks (PhD program U South AL)
John Deeble
Alex Hale (UAB Dentistry)
Gabrielle Unbehaun (UA MBA) 
Courtney Newton (UAB Dentistry)
Rebecca McClure
Chris Evans
Matt Honkanen (UAB School of Public Health)
Adam Hudson