Current students (Wake Tech)

The STem Academic Research and Training (START) program at Wake Tech allows faculty to mentor students for one or several semester on pre-defined research projects. Students interested in getting research experience should strongly consider signing in this program (click here) and can do so in the research program I co-advise with Melinda Gibbs: Aquatic Flora & Fauna (AF&F).

The AF&F program started in spring 2020 and was halted because of COVID until it started again in Spring 2021. So far, in 2021, we had the following students in the program:

• Shreeja Neupane

• Kaleb Holder

• Ananya Jain

• Katie Mueller

Ph.D. advisers (graduated in 2020)

Jeremy grew up in wonderful Santa Fe, NM and attended Oberlin College.  After Oberlin, he spent a year living in Boulder, CO and worked with Rob Guralnick at the University of Colorado.  He then moved to the Bay Area and completed a Ph.D. at Stanford University in the laboratory of Marc Feldman.  From late 2009 to 2012, he was a SFI Omidyar Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute.  He was a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) during 2013 and 2014. Jeremy started as an Assistant Professor at the University of Kentucky in January 2015. (curriculum vitae)

Why can some animals regenerate damaged tissues while others cannot?  It is a question that has fascinated scientists for centuries and yet, it remains largely unanswered.  In the context of regenerative biology, we are trying to understand the conditions that establish a regenerative microenvironment in response to injury.  Specifically, we want to determine the molecular mechanisms that regulate and direct this microenvironment to support regen and how these mechanisms are curtailed in non-regenerating systems.  Patterning, growth, and cellular differentiation are integrated during regeneration and development, but it remains largely unknown if organ regeneration recapitulates embryonic development or executes its own unique program in response to injury.  Using different animal models and organ systems like the skin, ear pinna and limb we are testing how regeneration diverges from the typical scarring response in mammals. In the context of regenerative medicine, we try to apply our understanding of how tissue regeneration occurs in mammals to inform new approaches to reduce fibrosis and stimulate a regenerative response to injury.

Past students (University of Kentucky)

I am a self-proclaimed nerd, lazy poet, and struggling biology student. I hope to get my B.S. in Biology and minor in Creative Writing in December, but in the meantime I’m content spending my time doing research in labs across campus and quoting John Mulaney at anyone who will listen. My work in lab focuses on how the behaviors of crayfish change after cheliped autotomy and exposure to predator cues. My personal scientific interests include urban ecology, metapopulations, wildlife conservation and management, and science outreach and education. In my free time, I enjoy playing Dungeons and Dragons, hiking and camping, and not reading as much as I should. I am also a mom to a beautiful disaster of a cat and a curator of my own mini museum of natural history. In a perfect world, I’d like to one day end up in a position where I can gallivant through the woods and educate the public about the wonders of the natural world at the same time.