Ben Winger | Principal InvestigatorView Ben Winger's CV
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
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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Eric Gulson-Castillo | PhD Student (2018-)Eric is interested in the ecology and evolution of avian movements and is studying the evolution of avian magnetoreception for his dissertation. Prior to beginning graduate school, Eric spent a year in Indonesia on a Fulbright scholarship, researching Sulawesi’s unique starlings and hornbills. He graduated from Cornell University in 2015 and has since done field work in far-flung places, with a focus on Bornean birds. He has done research on thermoregulation, morphology, and natural history.
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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.
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Postdocs
Dr. Abby Kimmitt| Postdoctoral FellowAbby is an integrative biologist interested in how animals cope with the challenges of seasonal environments. She investigates both the proximate mechanisms underlying seasonal behaviors, such as migration and reproduction, and the evolutionary consequences of variation in these behaviors. She joined the Winger lab as a postdoc in EEB in 2021 to study the relationship between seasonal migration and evolutionary processes in birds. Abby received her PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington in 2019.
Website: www.abbykimmitt.com |
Dr. Teresa Pegan| Postdoctoral FellowTeresa completed her PhD in our lab in 2023 and is now a postdoctoral fellow. Her research integrates behavioral, ecological, and genomic information in a comparative context to understand the evolutionary consequences of seasonal migration and dispersal. Her current work focuses on comparative population genomics of the boreal migratory bird species assemblage, including investigation into spatial genetic patterns, molecular evolutionary rates, and inversion polymorphisms in these species. Teresa has been involved in field projects in Malaysian Borneo, Argentina, Manitoba, and Michigan.
Website: https://teresapegan.weebly.com/ |
Postdoc and graduate alumni
Postdocs:
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
Susanna Gutierrez (2017-2023) | now Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Michigan Dept. of Human Genetics
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
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