Lab members
We are establishing a diverse, interactive group at the University of Alabama. Interested in joining? See information here
Dr. Fierst

Janna L. Fierst
Current CV

I grew up in Seattle, Washington and completed my BA at Pomona College in Claremont, California. After teaching high school for a couple of years I pursued an MS in Marine Biology at California State University, Northridge and discovered a love of mathematical biology. I finished my PhD at Florida State focusing on evolutionary theory and computational modeling and started studying genomics and bioinformatics during my postdoctoral training at the University of Oregon. I have been at the University of Alabama since 2015 and now we do it all! There is a broad range of work happening in the lab; in general we use theoretical, computational, bioinformatic and genomic approaches to address evolutionary questions.

Graduate Students

​Paula Adams
Paula started as a PhD student in Spring 2016. She completed her BS at the University of Alabama and did research internships at the University of Wyoming and Scripps Institute of Oceanography before starting graduate studies at UA. Paula is interested in using comparative computational genomics to study native Alabama aquatic biodiversity. She's currently analyzing the genetic architecture of inbreeding depression in Caenorhabditis.
John Sutton
John started as an undergraduate in the lab and entered the graduate program at UA in Fall 2016. His dissertation research is using comparative genomics to understand acetylene metabolism in microbes. He's also very interested in how we can use Oxford Nanopore technology to sequence complex genomes.
Joshua Millwood
Josh finished his MS at the University of West Alabama in Mike Sandel's LAQE lab studying phylogenetic relationships & microbial diversity within native Alabama freshwater fish. He started at UA in Fall 2018 co-advised by Matt Jenny and is currently working on assembling genome sequences and transcriptomes to understand variation in response to pollution and disturbance in threatened populations of native Alabama mussels.



Louis Bubrig
Louis was an undergraduate in the lab and started his MS in Fall 2018. He's interested in the intersection between ecology, immunology and evolution and is currently studying how Caenorhabditis make the decision to transition out of dauer. Louis participated in the Mountain Lake Biological Station REU over the summer and developed some serious field skills, watch him in action here https://vimeo.com/299923844

Padawan Learners

Ashlyn Anderson is a Mathematics - Biology dual major interested in biostats. She is developing a model of mating system transitions parameterized with organismal details & experimental parameters gained from real systems.
A. Houston Wingo is a Computer Science major developing species-specific neural net training protocols for Oxford Nanopore sequencing.

Lab Managers

Nilsa Rodriguez is a Biology major working on lab maintenance. She will be studying variation among species in the 'bag of worms' phenomenon in Spring 2019, aka when the mother dies and the baby worms eat their way out of her.
Chris Youssef is a Biology major working on lab maintenance. He came all the way from California, let's hope the Tide delivers him a championship for his freshman year!

Former Lab Members

Duncan Murdock started as a computational research technician in February 2016. He developed the SIDR software package to eliminate contamination from de novo genome assembly projects.
Kaylee Covan finished her undergraduate research in the lab and is headed off to be a Physicians Assistant.
Julie Jarnigan was a technician helping us get organized in the first year of the lab. She's now teaching microbiology labs at UA.
Mackenzie Valentin finished her undergraduate research in the lab and headed to an MD-PhD program.
Obie Moultrie finished his undergraduate research and started at UAB in the MD program in Fall 2018.
Danielle Kem finished her undergraduate research and is started at Ohio State in the MD program in Fall 2018.