Nicholas (Nick) Krell joined the Puckett Lab to begin his PhD work. Nick has a MS in Bioinformatics from UNC-Charlotte and will be using multiple ‘omics techniques to understand the adaptive hollow hair phenotype in polar bears.

Emily Puckett presented her talk, “Maintaining Bears’ Adaptive Potential: monitoring and assessing genetic indicators in Ursidae” at the 28th International Bear Association Conference in Edmonton, Canada. This work is a collaborative effort with Alex Kopatz from the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research in Trondheim, Norway. We are calling on the world’s bear experts to come […]

Congratulations to Phil Douchinsky upon the successful defense of his MS thesis: Comparative landscape genetics and dynamics in demography within sympatric ursids in Southeast Alaska.

Emily Puckett was elected as Secretary to the Council of the International Association for Bear Research and Management. Her three-year term will run 2024-2026. IBA is a professional society dedicated to the conservation of the world’s eight bear species. They support managers, researchers, and conservationists through communication, capacity-building, international meetings, and grant opportunities. I am […]

I’m excited to welcome Phil Douchinsky to the Puckett Lab!  Phil had been working as a research technician on a conservation genomics project looking at gene flow in fish across the landscape. For his MS, he will compare and contrast isolation by resistance of black (Ursus americanus) and brown (U. arctos) bears across the Southeastern […]

The Puckett Lab hosted Dr. Loren Cassin Sackett for seminar. Dr. Cassin Sackett studies how introduced parasites affect genomic diversity and population persistence in native wildlife populations. Her talk was titled, “The consequences of introduced pathogens on host evolution” and focused on studies in prairie dogs and Hawai’i ‘amakihi.

Very excited to welcome Heather Clendenin to the Puckett Lab!  Heather recently finished her MS at the University of Idaho where she investigated sibling relatedness in gray wolves (Canis lupus).  For her PhD, she will estimate genetic load in black bear (Ursus americanus) populations with varying demographic histories.

Very excited to welcome Matthew Pollard to the Puckett Lab!  Matthew recently finished his MS at Cardiff University where he was investigating the Y-chromosome of brown bears (Ursus arctos).  For his PhD, he will work on comparative genomics of bears.