Shizuka Lab

Life is social. We use a variety of approaches to study how social lives influence the ecology and evolution of animals in nature.

We are a part of the School of Biological Sciences at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Dr. Dai Shizuka (PI)

Current Lab Members:

Dr. Allison Johnson (Postdoc)

Allison works on cooperative breeding in fairywrens, heterospecific recognition, long-term social network dynamics. Visit her website here.

Dr. Eli Strauss (Postdoc)

Eli will start in the Shizuka Lab starting Fall 2019. He comes to us from the Holekamp Lab at MSU, where he completed his Ph.D. in Spring 2019. Check out his research on his website here.

Laura Vander Meiden (Ph.D. Student)

Laura is working on heterospecific interactions in the context of mixed-species flocks.

Annie Madsen (Ph.D. Student)

Annie is our former lab manager-turned-Ph.D. student starting Fall 2019! Here is her website. She is co-advised by Dr. Jamilynn Poletto.

Kris Hans (Undergraduate UCARE student)

Kris received funding from the UNL UCARE research fellowship to conduct work on winter ecology of birds using our new RFID feeder system.

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Lab Alumni:

Maria Goller (Ph.D. 2020)

Maria finished her Ph.D. on evolution and function of vocal mimicry in May 2020.

Emily Hudson (Ph.D. 2018):

Emily finished her Ph.D. on December 2018. She is now a postdoc in the Creanza Lab at Vanderbilt University.

Matt Wilkins (Postdoc: 2014-2016)

Matt is currently a postdoc at Vanderbilt University Center for Science Outreach. Find out more at his website and twitter.

Arich Knaub (Undergraduate researcher)

Arich graduate with a major in Math and minor in Biology in Spring 2019. He now teaches math in high school.

Bridget Bickner (Lab Tech)

Briget has been working as lab technician running various DNA analyses. She is now a Ph.D. student at Harvard with Dr. Robin Hopkins.