Franks Lab
Our Team
Steven Franks
Principal Investigator
is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Fordham University. He studies plant ecology and ecological genetics, with a focus on climate change, invasive species and the genetic basis of adaptive evolution.
Gabriella Quartuccia (she/her/hers)
Postdoctoral Research Associate
is a postdoctoral research associate in our lab, with research interests in species evolution and persistence, cryptic species complexes, and adaptation to changing environments. At Fordham, her work focuses on studying drought adaptation in rice.
Minju Kim
PhD Student
is a PhD student in our lab. His research focuses on (1) investigating rapid adaptive evolution of Brassica rapa and the underlying genetic basis in plant responses to climate change and (2) the adaptive and genomic response of the crop species Oryza sativa to specific field ecosystems. His academic interests include unveiling the evolution of organisms at the genomic and transcriptomic levels. Additionally, he aims to develop machine learning models to utilize genomic, phenotypic, and environmental data to derive meaningful biological and evolutionary insights.
Caroline Dewey (she/her/hers)
PhD Student
is a PhD student in our lab. Her research interests focus on thermotolerance and temperature stress in Brassica rapa. She will be using both ecological genetics and rapid evolution in future research.
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Luis Vega (he/him/his)
PhD Student
is a PhD student in our lab. His research interests include: plant evolution, systematics, and DNA barcoding, as well as crop domestication/feralization. His current focus at Fordham is on wild and feral Brassica populations and their potential adaptations to climate change using molecular, physiological, and morphological approaches.
Chris Perrone
MS Student
is a MS student in our lab. His research focuses on the effects of drought and mycorrhizal associations on plant-plant interactions within the context of invasive-native pairings. His academic interests include invasive species management and conservation practices.
Khue Nguyen (she/her/hers)
Undergraduate Researcher
is a sophomore Biology major and pre-med student with a strong interest in ecology. While exploring different paths within medicine, she remains curious about how ecological principles intersect with health and the environment. Her current focus is broad, as she continues to learn and refine her goals through coursework and hands-on experiences.
Isabella Grippo (she/her/hers)
Undergraduate Researcher
is a junior majoring in Biological Science and minoring in Sociology at the Rose Hill campus. She is passionate about climate change and the research surrounding its effects on environmental habitats, particularly the impact on local flora.
Rhea Mittal (she/her/hers)
Undergraduate Researcher
is a junior majoring in Biological Sciences and minoring in English at Rose Hill. She is passionate about plant genetics and the effect of environmental factors and climate change on plant evolution. Her goal is to further her knowledge of genetics and ecology through research.
Grace Angert (she/her/hers)
Undergraduate Researcher
is a sophomore majoring in Environmental Studies and Communications. She is passionate about and would like to pursue a career in research or environmental education. She hopes to be able to conduct research studying animals and their ecosystems.
Rachel Zhao
Undergraduate Researcher
is in the pre-med class of 2028 and majoring in Biochemistry. She focuses on ecological research and helps extract plant DNA in the molecular biology lab at Calder Center. Her career goal is becoming an orthodontist while still doing research. She enjoys volunteering for environmental conservation and is part of the Fordham Volunteer Corps leadership board as well as FURJ (Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal).
Michael Guan
Undergraduate Researcher
is a Sophomore majoring in Biological Sciences and Humanitarian Studies at Rose Hill, and is passionate about the effects of environmental stressors on rapid evolution and their intersection with environmental health. Michael hopes to further his interests in evolution and in environmental health equity.
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Olivier Twardowski
Undergraduate Researcher
is a junior pre-med student majoring in Biological Sciences. Although his main career goals pertain to medicine, his research interests strongly align with ecology and understanding the effects of climate change across different environments. Olivier is motivated by a desire to make climate change research and its implications more accessible to broader audiences.
Lab Alumni
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Elena Hamann was a postdoc and teaching fellow at Fordham. Her research focuses on the processes that promote or constrain adaptive evolution in natural plant populations, and attempts at disentangling the relative contributions of adaptation, phenotypic plasticity, and range shifts in response to rapid climate change. Elena is an Assistant Professor for Plant Ecology and Evolution at the Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany.
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Joey Jaros received their M.S. from Fordham in 2022. They conducted research on how plant-microbial interactions shape the structure and spread of knotweed plant populations. They are currently a PhD student at The Ohio State University.
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Stephen Johnson received his Ph.D. from Fordham in May 2021. He conducted an experimental evolution project to test adaptation to drought in Brassica rapa. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan with Dr. Regina Baucom.
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Conor Gilligan received his M.S. from Fordham in May 2019. He conducted research on the genetic basis of divergence in flowering time in artificially selected lines of Brassica rapa. He is currently a PhD student at NYU.
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Irina Calic was a postdoc working on our system genomics of rice adaptation to stress project from January – August, 2018. She is currently a postdoc with Juliette de Meaux at the University of Cologne, working on evolution of gene regulation and polygenic adaptation in Arabidopsis species.
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Acer VanWallendael received his Ph.D. from Fordham in 2018. His research investigated local adaptation and population genomics in the invasive plant Japanese knotweed. Acer is an Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University.
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Hansol Lee received her M.S. from Fordham in August 2018. She conducted research on allelopathy.
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Michael Sekor received his Ph.D. from Fordham in 2017. He is now working as a postdoctoral teaching fellow (see above).
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Beth Ansaldi received her Ph.D. from Fordham in 2017. She was co-advised by Dr. Jenn Weber. Beth conducted research on the reproductive ecology of Triodanis perfoliata, a plant with a mixed cleistogamous mating system. She is now working as a project manager in Michigan.
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Jenn Weber was a postdoctoral research associate for Project Baseline. Jenn received her Ph.D. from the University of California Irvine in 2012. She conducts research on plant reproductive ecology, evolutionary responses to climate change, and plant ecological genetics and genomics. Jenn is an assistant professor in the Department of Plant Biology at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
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Niamh O’Hara is former Ph.D. student and postdoctoral researcher in my lab. She received her Ph.D. from Stony Brook University in 2014. She did a Startup Postdoc at Runway Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute. She is now CEO and co-founder of the biotech company Biota.
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David Waring M.S. 2012 — Working for National Park Service in Moab Utah
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Rachel Welt, M.S. 2012– Working for the American Museum of Natural History