VREDENBURG LAB
People
Principal Investigator
Dr. Vance T. Vredenburg
Professor, Department of Biology
San Francisco State University
Research Associate Museum of Vertebrate Zoology
Fellow and Research Associate California Academy of Sciences
(415) 338-7296
Vance Vredenburg is a Professor in the Department of Biology at San Francisco State University, Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, and Research Associate at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at University of California Berkeley. He grew up in Mexico, received his bachelor's degree from UC Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. His Ph.D. research was the first to show it is possible to reverse the decline of a threatened frog in the wild. His approach has been implemented in montane areas globally. His current research focuses on the world’s Sixth Mass Extinction, specifically on the impacts of an emerging infectious disease (chytridiomycosis) on amphibians and the role of the amphibian skin microbiome in health and disease.
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Curriculum Vitae (CV) available as PDF: 2-page CV or full CV
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Graduate Students
Helen Butler
Helen Butler is interested in studying the dynamics of amphibian disease in human altered landscapes of mountain ecosystems. Her undergraduate research endeavors include involvement in a study at San Francisco State that estimates transmission dynamics of disease in relation to behavior in California salamanders. Also, she assisted on a study that analyzed the aggressiveness of urban and rural song sparrows in Virginia. Helen graduated with a B.S. in Biology from Virginia Tech in 2015.
Alan Chan
Alan received his undergraduate degree in Ecology from University of San Francisco. His M.S. thesis focuses on the role of the skin microbiome as a mechanism of resistance against fungal pathogens in amphibians. He hopes to use this information to aid in conservation efforts of North American amphibians.
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Gordon Lau
Gordon received his undergraduate degree in Molecular Environmental Biology from UC Berkeley. He is a member of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology over at Cal, and has worked on AmphibiaWeb and GIS-related tasks for a few years now. He plans to use his databasing/GIS skills to investigate if life history traits, IUCN threat status, and range size of salamanders in Bd-epidemic regions may be related to their susceptibility to Bd infection.
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Adrienne Le
Adrienne is originally from Orange County and received her undergraduate degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from San Francisco State University volunteering in the Vredenburg lab for about a year. Her thesis focuses on a retrospective analysis on Bd emergence in the long-toed salamander in California. Her overall career goals is to study Disease Ecology, Animal Behavior in response to sexual selection, and impacts of disease on certain populations and their behavior.
Kurt Lutz
Kurt was an undergraduate at SF State University. He is interested in studying amphibian conservation and is currently focused on studying the effects of dams on amphibian populations. In particular, he is studying how dam construction can lead to invasion of non-native species (of amphibians and amphibiian predators) and to isolation of remaining populations of native amphibians.
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Alessandra Moyer
Alessandra Moyer studies the effect of the marine subsidy on California island salamanders. Previously, she worked on marine trophic webs at Point Blue Conservation Science in Petaluma, CA. She received her BA in Integrative Biology from UC Berkeley in 2015. Her honors thesis focused on the growth rate of post-fire fungi.
Heidi received her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Washington and is a current NSF fellow. She is currently looking at the prevalence of Bd on the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. She's also focused on incorporating science communication into her research and spends her spare time photographing nature and making short films.
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Hasan Sulaeman
Hasan graduated from San Francisco State in 2016 with a B.S. in Zoology and an A.A. in Philosophy. He hopes to graduate with his M.S. in Spring 2019 and pursue a PhD program with a concentration in herpetology. Hasan’s masters thesis adopts an integrative approach to assessing Bd dynamic on the island of Java, Indonesia
Undergraduate Students and Volunteers
Jennifer Branson
Coming soon!
Monica Chee
Monica graduated from San Francisco State University in Fall of 2017 with her Bachelor's Degree in Biology (Zoology). She's an avid animal lover who plans to pursue her veterinary doctorate in the near future.
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Tai-Wei Chen
Tai-Wei is a Zoology major finishing up her senior year and set to graduate by Fall 2018. Ultimately she is planning on becoming a veterinarian, working with exotic animals like reptiles ad amphibians. Tai-Wei has been working with Newt doing museum swabbing of amphibians from the Island of Sulawesi, Indonesia and doing census work on salamanders in Marin county.
René Gonzalez
René attends SF State as an undergraduate majoring in Cell and Molecular Biology and minoring in Chemistry. He’s a self-proclaimed wizard from Harry Potter who marvels at the ingenuity of all things pertaining to cells and their behavior. He aspires to learn more about Comparative Immunology and Infectious Diseases and hopes that it could someday lead to something meaningful. René intends to pursue a PhD and is committed to being a life-long learner.
Postdoctoral Scholars
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Tiffany Yap completed her D.Env (Ph.D) degree from the Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, Institute of the Environment, UCLA in 2016. Her dissertation focused on the global patterns of emerging fungal pathogens (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans), their infectivity and virulence on amphibian species, and the implications of human-mediated species movements.​ For her postdoc, she is focusing on building pathogen habitat suitability models to help predict future outbreaks. Please see Tiffany's website for more information.
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Tiffany Yap
Graduate students at PhD-granting institutions
Alicia Bird: University of California Davis
Marina de León: University of California Davis
Mary Toothman: University of California Santa Barbara
Sonia Ghose - University of California Davis
Sophia Prado-Irwin : Harvard University
Former Postdoctoral Scholars
Assistant Professor, Miami International University, Miami, FL, USA
Former Graduate Students
Carla Sette, Sofia Prado-Irwin, Alicia Bird, Jon Young, Tina Cheng, Celeste Dodge, Andreana Lizethe Manzano, Silas Ellison, Cory Singer, Angel Jacobo Conde, Angel Jacobo Conde, Sam McNally, Stephanie Hyland, Gabriela Rios-Sotelo, Danqing (Stella) Shao, Meghan Bishop, Natalie Reeder, Kendra Ritchie, Shruti Chaukular, Jordan Greer, and Eliseo Parra.
Former Visiting Research Scholars
Former Undergraduates
2017-2018:
Monica Chee
2016-2017:
Sarah Contreras, Sofia Kakaizada, Michael Gibson, Stephanie Huynh, Nathaniel Estrada, Muhammad Hasan
2015-2016:
Jodie Esaki, Stephenie Huynh, Amanda Huynh, Joelle Dugay, Kelly Hyde, Muhammad Hasan, Nathaniel Estrada, etc.
2014-2015:
Helen Butler, Kirsten Inuman Liaz , Laurence Cyril Henson, Jodie Esaki, Jessica Feist, Zarina Sheikh, Dana Alazzeh, Samantha Lee, Wesley Sparagon, Karen Evans, Molli Bauke, Niquo Ceberio, Stephenie Huynh
2013-2014:
Shruti Ajay, Bo Heinz, Linette Rasmussen, Jason Helvey, Mark Russell, Nina Hang, Laurence Cyril Henson, Kirsten Inuman Liaz, Niquo Ceberio, Corinna Inmann, Ivet Lolham, Mackenzie Beaschler, Margarita Montenegro, Michelle Davila
2012-2013:
Lauren Gillespie, Lilia Torres, Cory Singer, Dominique Sevi, Mark Russell, Lauren Price, Christy Fox, Erica Ely, Nicole Solano, Mackenzie Beaschler, Robert Tom, Jason Anders, Kevin Gundred, Gina Geiselman, Alex Harencar, Laurence Cyril Henson, Lisa Gunter, Nina Hang, Amanda Carbajal, Bo Heinz, Corinna Inmann, Hanh Kim Pham, Hannah Louise Durbin, Ivet Lolham, Jina Kim, Jourdan McPhetridge, Karl Alicando, Pearl Pui Yi Tam, Shruti Ajay
2011-2012:
Cory Singer, Matthew West, Mark Russell, Christy Fox, Lauren Gillespie, Rachel Perez, Rebecca Belloso, Marina De Leon, Lilia Torres
2010-2011:
Cory Singer, Matthew West, Brennan Helwig, Eric Ng, Nadia Yuen, Farishta Safi, Wendi Solis, Noel Graham, Betsabel Chicana Romero
2009-2010:
Christine Rogers, Melo-Jean Encinas, Kacy Hayes, Iulia Samachisa, Lilia Torres, Celeste Dodge, Cory Singer