People
Graduate Students
Brittany Cornell
Brittany is a fourth-year Biology PhD candidate interested in herpetology, evolutionary ecology and animal behavior. She studied biology during her undergrad at Sam Houston State University. She stayed at SHSU to complete her master’s in Biology, during which she worked on Agkistrodon piscivorus habitat and refuge selection, as well as skeletal morphology in Gekkota. In the Fitzpatrick Lab, she studies reproductive ornamentation in female Phrynosomatid lizards.
Austen Ehrie
Austen is a fourth-year Biology PhD candidate who primarily studies animal behavior and organismal biology with an emphasis on sexual selection, mating behavior, and reproduction in non-human primates. Austen is particularly interested in exploring phenotypes that challenge traditional evolutionary paradigms. In 2022 he graduated from Indiana University with a BS in Animal Behavior and a BA in Environmental and Sustainability Studies. While at Indiana University Austen conducted two independent research projects: one investigating the neurotranscriptomic profiles of reproductive behaviors in a sex-role reversed shorebird (Jacana spinosa) and the other testing whether parallel laser photogrammetry could be used to measure the testes of mantled howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) non-invasively. In the Fitzpatrick Lab, he is examining how copulation rate and fetal/infant death influences the probability of conception in the female Amboseli baboons. Austen also enjoys watching horror movies and thinking of ideas for future tattoos.
Ruby Mustill
Ruby is a third-year Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) PhD candidate interested in life history, sexual selection, and the evolution of primate behavior and signaling. She studied anthropology and evolutionary biology at Columbia University, where she wrote a senior thesis comparing sexual swellings and sexual behavior in adolescent and adult female Kinda baboons. After graduating from Columbia in 2021, she studied rhesus macaques in Puerto Rico and Kinda baboons in Zambia. Ruby’s PhD research is focused on the evolution of adolescence in primates. She particularly enjoys reading about new findings that challenge traditional Darwinian ideas about sex roles in animals, and she aims to do the same with her future research.
Undergraduate Students
Mary Gomulak
Mary is an undergraduate student majoring in Ecology and Conservation Biology. She is particularly interested in herpetology, reptile and amphibian habitat restoration, conservation programs, and animal behavior in hopes of becoming a wildlife biologist. As a member of the Fitzpatrick Lab, she is currently helping with research on female ornamentation in Sceloporus virgatus, and she plans on continuing herpetological research throughout her future career. She enjoys hiking, fishing, painting, and a good game of volleyball!
Read more about Mary’s research in our lab here.
Lab Mascot
Tallulah
Tallulah is the official mascot of the Fitzpatrick Lab. She is primarily interested in crickets.
Lab Alumni
Seren Helms (undergraduate research assistant 2023–2026)
Aidan Lee (undergraduate research assistant 2023–2026)
Colton Watts (postdoc 2021–2025), postdoc in the Hebets Lab at the University of Nebraska
Paola Fascinetto-Zago (affiliated PhD student 2021–2024), postdoc in the Schumer Lab at Stanford University
Elizabeth George (postdoc 2021–2023), assistant professor at Gannon University
Cecile Renfro (research assistant 2021–2023), research intern at the Lake Superior National Estuarine Research Reserve
Juan Pablo Ríos (undergraduate research assistant 2021–2022), project manager in the DuVal Lab at Florida State University