{"id":997,"date":"2026-06-23T11:56:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T18:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/?p=997"},"modified":"2026-06-23T12:49:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:49:20","slug":"saying-good-bio-looking-back-at-recent-graduates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/2026\/06\/23\/saying-good-bio-looking-back-at-recent-graduates\/","title":{"rendered":"Saying Good-Bio: Looking Back at Recent Graduates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A
Art by recent undergrad alum\u00a0Inga Gudeman celebrates UW Biology graduates!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Graduate students are a cornerstone of our department, and celebrating their accomplishments is a joyful must. They have all made a mark in the history of science and in the people they have mentored, taught, and befriended. From a current graduate student\u2019s perspective, seeing those who have finished the PhD marathon gives both existential panic and a glimmer of hope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Below is a list of students who graduated between Fall 2024 and Spring 2026, and their corresponding thesis title. We encourage you to look them up and follow their scientific impact!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Sujay Balebail<\/strong> – ’24: \u201cHearing and acoustic communication in fishes: Tales from a vocal champion\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona Boardman<\/strong> – ’24 \u201cOyster aquaculture shapes intertidal communities: from foundation species to higher trophic levels\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hayden Davis<\/strong> – ’24: \u201cExploration of the patterns and processes driving lineage diversification\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex Lowe<\/strong> – ’24: \u201cPlant community and climatic responses to Miocene environmental change in the Pacific Northwest(USA): paleoecological tools and applications\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jazzmine Waugh<\/strong> – ’24: \u201cData-driven stories stemming from public participation in science\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katie Holt<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cPenguins in the Coal Mine: Unraveling Sentinels Species Responses to Human-Cause Stressors\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wesley Hull<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cAntagonistic ecosystem engineering influences habitat mosaics: The role of borrowing shrimp in shaping estuary foundation species\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natalia Guayazan Palacios<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cFrom the cell surface to the field: receptor-mediated herbivore induced defenses in legume crops\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christine Nolan <\/strong>– ’25: \u201cUncovering the mechanism and seasonal regulation of flowering in a marine angiosperm, Zostera marina\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Cuban<\/strong> – ’25: \u201c<\/em>Investigating the convergent evolution of nectar-feeding birds through the lens of biomechanics\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amanda Hewes<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cEvolutionary ecology of interactions between plants and nectar-feeding birds across scales\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Villalobos-Chaves<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cFrom the ground to the skies: Ecomorphological predictors of diet and trophic diversification in small Neotropical mammals\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Job Veloso<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cEchoes in the Chambers: Exploring the Ecology and Evolution of Mesophotic Zone Scavengers in Chambered Cephalopods\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elena Stiles<\/strong> – ’25: Try Everything: Coupling phytolith and isotope records to reconstruct South American landscapes and vegetation during warm intervals of the Cenozoic\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nate Grassi <\/strong>– ’25: \u201cHost and Habitat: Ecological Context Shapes Evolution of a Mobile Gene\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah McConnell<\/strong> – ’25:  \u201cReconstructing the evolution of gene function for a master regulator of flowering: LEAFY in the fern Ceratopteris richardii\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roberto Carlos Segura<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cAsymmetry of centrosomes in Drosophila neural stem cells requires protein phosphatase 4\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kendall Murie<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cFlow as a Mediator of Ecosystem Engineering: Hydrodynamics Shape<\/em> Chemical Modification by Kelp and Mussel Beds\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cassandra Maranas<\/strong> – ’25: \u201cVariety is the spice of life: Engineering tools for visualizing transcriptional heterogeneity and its effect on cell differentiation in Arabidopsis\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leigh West<\/strong> – ’26: \u201cLinking climate impacts on animal movement, community dynamics, and human-wildlife coexistence\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Benjamin Downing <\/strong>– ’26: \u201cTurning the Tap: The TPX corepressor family in plant development and immunity\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Smith<\/strong> – ’26: \u201cThe behavioral and energetic responses of montane grasshoppers to climate change and the effects of competition in introductory college STEM classrooms\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erik Johansson<\/strong> – ’26: \u201cIndividual Behavioral Variation in a Highly-Mobile Marine Predator: Plasticity, Experience, and Fitness Outcomes\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sophia Jannetty<\/strong> – ’26: \u201cSpatiotemporal modeling reveals cellular reguatory dynamics driving tissue and organ development\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrew Kim Hempton<\/strong> – ’26: \u201cFLOWERING PROMOTING FACTOR 1 (FPF1) family genes control shade-induced development in Arabidopsis thaliana\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack Litle<\/strong> – ’26: \u201cTraits, behavior, and physiological plasticity mediate thermal stress in intertidal mollusks\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Graduate students are a cornerstone of our department, and celebrating their accomplishments is a joyful<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[64],"ppma_author":[22],"class_list":["post-997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-recent-graduates","category-scipos","tag-graduate-school"],"authors":[{"term_id":22,"user_id":1,"is_guest":0,"slug":"scipos","display_name":"SciPos","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0bb1f4cb5ff99dd034602ced0e2534fc.png","url2x":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/0bb1f4cb5ff99dd034602ced0e2534fc.png"},"author_category":"","user_url":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=997"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/997\/revisions\/1045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=997"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depts.washington.edu\/scipos\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}