People
Postdoctoral Researchers
Colton Watts
Colton's research focuses broadly on the evolutionary ecology of behavior and life history decisions, with an emphasis on combining empirical methods and mathematical modeling to bridge the gap between case studies and generalizable biological principles. His work spans a variety of specific topics ranging from daily rhythms and life history strategies to mate choice and sexual signaling. Colton is particularly interested in how selection on mate choice and sexual signaling behaviors changes with the social environment, and how these dynamics influence the relationships between evolutionary and ecological dynamics. As part of the Fitzpatrick lab, Colton is using population genetic models to understand the evolution of female sexual signals in polygynous mating systems.
Graduate Students
Brittany Cornell
Brittany is a second year Biology PhD student 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 in Biology during which she worked on Agkistrodon piscivorus habitat and refuge selection as well as skeletal morphology in Gekkota. As part of the Fitzpatrick lab, she studies reproductive ornamentation in female Phrynosomatid lizards.
Austen Ehrie
Austen is a second year Biology PhD student 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 social dynamics and life experience influences the probability of conception in baboons. Austen also enjoys watching horror movies and thinking of ideas for future tattoos.
Paola Fascinetto Zago
Paola is a fourth year graduate student formally co-advised by Alan Pepper and Gil Rosenthal. Her interests in animal behavior and evolutionary ecology have led her to become part of the Fitzpatrick Lab community. She studied biology as an undergraduate student in the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, and then received a Master in Physiological Sciences working on the courtship behavior of Xenotoca variata fish. Currently, she is studying the relationship between animal personality, learning and mate choice in two species of Xiphophorus fish. In addition to research, she is passionate about outreach and teaching.
Ruby Mustill
Ruby is a first-year Ecology and Evolutionary Biology PhD student interested in development, 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 parous and nulliparous female Kinda baboons. After graduating from Columbia in 2021, Ruby moved to Puerto Rico to study social stress in low-ranking rhesus macaques on Cayo Santiago. She then worked for eleven months as the field manager of the Kasanka Baboon Project in Kasanka National Park, Zambia. As a member of the Fitzpatrick Lab, she hopes to continue studying behavior and sexual signaling in baboons. Ruby 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.
Lab Alumni
Elizabeth George
Elizabeth is broadly interested in the causes and consequences of social behavior, especially among reproductive females. She completed her dissertation in the lab of Dr. Kimberly Rosvall at Indiana University. There, she investigated behavioral and physiological responses to female-female competition in tree swallows, with an emphasis on aggressive behavior and the steroid hormone testosterone. As a postdoc in the Fitzpatrick lab, she used data collected from the long-running Amboseli Baboon Research Project to explore factors affecting fecundability, or the ability to conceive, in female baboons. She then tested some hypotheses that may explain the maintenance of variation in fecundability, and whether it relates to other aspects of their lives, such as female social interactions with males.
Cecile Renfro
Cecile’s research interests include comparative biology and community ecology. She completed her undergraduate degree in Plant Biology with a focus in Ecology and Management of Grassland Systems at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has a passion for natural history and has a demonstrated talent for plant identification. She placed in the top 5% for the Undergraduate Range Management Exam and the top 10% in the Plant Identification Contest at the 2018 International Society of Range Management. She worked for the US Forest Service as a Range Technician, conducting vegetation inventory and monitoring surveys in Sage Grouse habitat. Most recently, she worked as a Soil Conservationist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Nebraska. In our lab, she cultivated a newfound appreciation of evolutionary biology while launching the lizard family Phrynosomatidae as a study system to understand the evolution of female ornamentation. She is now an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Master’s student in the Spalink Lab at TAMU. Cecile’s hobbies include bead embroidery, hiking, and reading.
Juan Pablo Ríos
Juan Pablo’s research interests are primarily focused on animal behavior and sexual selection. He is particularly interested in how sexual signals have been shaped by mate choice. He recently achieved his undergraduate degree at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. During his undergraduate, he completed an internship in the Fitzpatrick Lab. He continues to excel in his position working on the evolution of reproductive coloration in female phrynosomatid lizards. In his free time he likes reading and birdwatching.