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I am currently a JSMF postdoc with Emilie Snell-Rood at the University of Minnesota and Dan Bolnick at the University of Connecticut. I aim to understand how interactions between hosts and parasites can shape patterns across spatial scales, from variation between individuals to changing patterns across populations. My research spans the fields of evolution, behavioral ecology, and parasitology. I work with several study systems, including barn swallows, pacific swallows, stickleback, and soon butterflies.
I did my Ph.D. in Rebecca Safran's lab, where I studied how local adaptation to parasite communities can shape divergent sexual selection across three barn swallow subspecies. At the University of Colorado, I also did a postdoc with Scott Taylor, to understand how gene expression and the environment influence the expression of sexually selected melanin color in barn swallows. To learn more about what I do, check out my research page. Read my blog for fun updates on fieldwork, science, and adventure both at home and abroad. Contact: email: ahund[at]umn.edu twitter: @AmandaHund |
News and Updates
September 2018: Beautiful views, wonderful people, and cool science at the JSMF-SFI conference in Santa Fe.
August 2018: Enjoying my time at the ISBE meeting in Minneapolis MN. I have heard so many interesting talks! Exciting to meet up with old friends and make new ones too.
August 2018: Congrats to Will Dube on publishing his honors thesis on the abiotic and biotic factors shaping mite population growth at the International Journal of Parasitology. It has been so much fun to work with Will over the years and see this paper published!
August 2018: Moving to Minnesota! Excited to start as a postdoc in Emilie Snell-Roods lab at the University of Minnesota.
June 2018: Off to Vancouver Island, Canada, to do a couple weeks of stickleback fieldwork with Dan Bolnick's group. Excited to learn how to work with these fish and their parasites!
May 2018: Excited to be at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) to catch some pacific swallows with Liz Scordato and our collaborator Nick Freedman. Looking forward to giving a seminar later this week and talking with people about parasites.
April 2018: Honored to have been awarded the American Ornithology Society Hildegard Hesse Award. Thanks to AOS for their support of graduate student and postdoc research!
April 2018: Off to Malaysia to work on Pacific Swallows with Liz Scordato. You can read about my adventures doing field work in Southeast Asia on my blog.
March 2018: Just returning from a week at the Santa Fe Institute for the JSMF and SFI postdoc conference. Had a great time meeting new people and learning about complexity research from all sorts of different perspectives. I especially enjoyed working with my research jam group on modeling disease incubation periods.
February 2018: A nice study on corpse removal behavior in ants accepted to the Journal of Insect Behavior! This study was lead by David Zelagin, who did this work for his undergraduate honors thesis with Mike Breed. I really enjoyed being involved in this paper and getting to think about ants!
January 2018: Congrats to Kyle Donahue on publishing his masters thesis on The predictors and consequences of nest-switching behavior in Barn Swallows, in the Auk. It has been so fun to work with Kyle and see this paper come along.
January 2018: On my way home from the American Society of Naturalist 2018 Conference. A really excellent meeting- I learned a ton and had the chance to meet up with old friends and make new ones. I especially like the symposia highlighting influential papers from the past 150 years at AmNat.
December 2017: First successful RNA extractions from nestling feather tissue! Getting excited for gene expression data.
November 2017: Just returned from an excellent lab retreat with the Taylor, Wagner, and Carling labs up in the mountains outside Estes Park. It was a great weekend spent connecting and catching up with colleagues, learning about the NSF and other professional development, and sharing some cool science.
November 2017: Paper on the predictors and consequences of nest-switching behavior in Barn Swallows accepted at the Auk. Lead by Kyle Donahue and including Iris Levin and Rebecca Safran. Kyle did this project as a masters student and it is so fun to see it published!
October 2017: I was awarded the James S Mcdonnell Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in dynamic and multi-scale systems. Very excited about the opportunities this will give me to explore complex interactions with parasites in the future. Still deciding where exactly I am going to land.
September 2017: Successful Defense! Officially a Ph.D! Thanks Becca for all the support.
June 2017: Just returned from the Animal Behavior Conference in Toronto where I was lucky enough to present in the Allee symposium. Great to hear so many interesting talks and to make lots of new friends with my fellow Allee speakers.
April 2017: Congratulations to Kelley McCahill on the successful defense of her honors thesis. I had such a blast working with Kelley on her project examining the effects of nest parasites on incubation behavior. Great job Kelley!
March 2017: Congratulations to Will Dube on his honors thesis defense. His project focused on the abiotic and biotic predictors of nest mite population growth. I have been working with Will for so many years and it is great to see how far he has come. Will is going to graduate school in the fall for epidemiology, which is great- but I will miss him around the lab.
March 2017: The Gordon Research Conference and Research Seminar on Speciation in Lucca Italy was a huge success. So many great talks and discussion, I learned a ton. I had a great time chairing and organizing the young investigator research seminar with Laurel Symes. Thanks again to the discussion leaders for their help organizing and to all of our great speakers and poster presenters. Looking forward to the next conference in 2018.
September 2018: Beautiful views, wonderful people, and cool science at the JSMF-SFI conference in Santa Fe.
August 2018: Enjoying my time at the ISBE meeting in Minneapolis MN. I have heard so many interesting talks! Exciting to meet up with old friends and make new ones too.
August 2018: Congrats to Will Dube on publishing his honors thesis on the abiotic and biotic factors shaping mite population growth at the International Journal of Parasitology. It has been so much fun to work with Will over the years and see this paper published!
August 2018: Moving to Minnesota! Excited to start as a postdoc in Emilie Snell-Roods lab at the University of Minnesota.
June 2018: Off to Vancouver Island, Canada, to do a couple weeks of stickleback fieldwork with Dan Bolnick's group. Excited to learn how to work with these fish and their parasites!
May 2018: Excited to be at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) to catch some pacific swallows with Liz Scordato and our collaborator Nick Freedman. Looking forward to giving a seminar later this week and talking with people about parasites.
April 2018: Honored to have been awarded the American Ornithology Society Hildegard Hesse Award. Thanks to AOS for their support of graduate student and postdoc research!
April 2018: Off to Malaysia to work on Pacific Swallows with Liz Scordato. You can read about my adventures doing field work in Southeast Asia on my blog.
March 2018: Just returning from a week at the Santa Fe Institute for the JSMF and SFI postdoc conference. Had a great time meeting new people and learning about complexity research from all sorts of different perspectives. I especially enjoyed working with my research jam group on modeling disease incubation periods.
February 2018: A nice study on corpse removal behavior in ants accepted to the Journal of Insect Behavior! This study was lead by David Zelagin, who did this work for his undergraduate honors thesis with Mike Breed. I really enjoyed being involved in this paper and getting to think about ants!
January 2018: Congrats to Kyle Donahue on publishing his masters thesis on The predictors and consequences of nest-switching behavior in Barn Swallows, in the Auk. It has been so fun to work with Kyle and see this paper come along.
January 2018: On my way home from the American Society of Naturalist 2018 Conference. A really excellent meeting- I learned a ton and had the chance to meet up with old friends and make new ones. I especially like the symposia highlighting influential papers from the past 150 years at AmNat.
December 2017: First successful RNA extractions from nestling feather tissue! Getting excited for gene expression data.
November 2017: Just returned from an excellent lab retreat with the Taylor, Wagner, and Carling labs up in the mountains outside Estes Park. It was a great weekend spent connecting and catching up with colleagues, learning about the NSF and other professional development, and sharing some cool science.
November 2017: Paper on the predictors and consequences of nest-switching behavior in Barn Swallows accepted at the Auk. Lead by Kyle Donahue and including Iris Levin and Rebecca Safran. Kyle did this project as a masters student and it is so fun to see it published!
October 2017: I was awarded the James S Mcdonnell Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in dynamic and multi-scale systems. Very excited about the opportunities this will give me to explore complex interactions with parasites in the future. Still deciding where exactly I am going to land.
September 2017: Successful Defense! Officially a Ph.D! Thanks Becca for all the support.
June 2017: Just returned from the Animal Behavior Conference in Toronto where I was lucky enough to present in the Allee symposium. Great to hear so many interesting talks and to make lots of new friends with my fellow Allee speakers.
April 2017: Congratulations to Kelley McCahill on the successful defense of her honors thesis. I had such a blast working with Kelley on her project examining the effects of nest parasites on incubation behavior. Great job Kelley!
March 2017: Congratulations to Will Dube on his honors thesis defense. His project focused on the abiotic and biotic predictors of nest mite population growth. I have been working with Will for so many years and it is great to see how far he has come. Will is going to graduate school in the fall for epidemiology, which is great- but I will miss him around the lab.
March 2017: The Gordon Research Conference and Research Seminar on Speciation in Lucca Italy was a huge success. So many great talks and discussion, I learned a ton. I had a great time chairing and organizing the young investigator research seminar with Laurel Symes. Thanks again to the discussion leaders for their help organizing and to all of our great speakers and poster presenters. Looking forward to the next conference in 2018.