Winger Lab at University of Michigan
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  • Ornithology at the UMMZ
  • Home
  • News
  • People
  • Research
  • Publications
  • Teaching
  • Ornithology at the UMMZ
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Ben Winger | Principal Investigator

View Ben Winger's CV
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Ben is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Curator of Birds in the Museum of Zoology at the University of Michigan.  He is an evolutionary biologist and ornithologist with broad and diverse interests in avian evolution, ecology and behavior. Ben earned his PhD in 2015 from the University of Chicago and his BA in 2007 from Cornell University. 

Contact: wingerb [at] umich.edu

Graduate Students

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Matt Hack | PhD Student (2021-)

Matt is interested in the factors shaping geographic range and distribution in migratory birds, and the responses of their distributions to global change. Before joining the Winger Lab, he spent a year with the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center, studying the nesting ecology of terns in the Chesapeake Bay. Matt graduated from Yale University in 2020, where he studied phylogeography of South American birds.
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Kristen Wacker | PhD Student (2019- )

Kristen graduated from the University of Chicago in 2017. Prior to joining the Winger Lab, she worked as a genetics lab technician at the Field Museum of Natural History, contributing to projects on the phylogenetics, biogeography, and pathogens of endemic birds from Madagascar. At Michigan, she uses comparative methods to investigate the role of gene flow in speciation in birds and the links between microevolutionary processes and macroevolutionary patterns. She is particularly interested in the avifauna of tropical South America. ​
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Max Witynski| PhD Student (2023- )

Max graduated from Cornell University in 2017. His undergraduate thesis focused on migratory connectivity, and he remains broadly interested in how migratory routes and strategies have evolved. Prior to joining the PhD program, Max worked in research communication in Chicago, where he wrote for Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.

Postdoctoral and graduate alumni

Postdocs:
Abigail Kimmitt (2021-2024) 
|now Assistant Professor, Hofstra University
Jacob Berv (2019-2023) |now Michigan Institute for Data Science Postdoctoral Fellow
Marketa Zimova (2019-2021) |now Assistant Professor, Ohio University
Brian Weeks  (2017-2019)  |now Assistant Professor, University of Michigan SEAS

PhD Students
Eric Gulson-Castillo (2018-2024) | now Donnelley Postdoctoral Fellow, Yale University
Teresa Pegan (2017-2023) | now NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard University & UMass Amherst
Susanna Gutierrez (2017-2023) | now Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Michigan Dept. of Human Genetics

M.S. Students

Andrea Benavides Castaño (2022-2024) 


Undergraduate Research Assistants, Interns and Independent Study

2024               Jonathan Sarasa
2024               Mark Ziebell
2024               Amelia Meares-Parcher
2024–             Ashley Vallance
2022–             Connor Jordan
2022–2024   Diego Suazo de la Rosa
2022-2023    Fatime Jomaa
2022-2023    Haley Martens
2022               Sophia Bonnewit
2022               Claire Pajka
2022               Elizabeth Stayton
2018–2022    Vera Ting
2021–2022    Madisyn Guza
2021–2022    Ethan Van Valkenberg
2020–2021    Michael Lyons
2018–2019     Caleb Kaczmarek
2018-2019     Charles Kotila 
2017–2018     Melanie Florkowski
2017–2018     Seana Florida
2016–2018    Jessica Yan 
2016–2017     Bella Rios 
2016–2017     Aspen Ellis
All images, unless otherwise indicated, © Benjamin M. Winger, All Rights Reserved