Current Lab Members
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Dr. Lena Hileman, PI
Lena received her Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University. After completing her Ph.D.,she spent three years in Dr. Vivian Irish's lab at Yale University as a postdoctoral researcher before starting up her own lab in 2005 at the University of Kansas. She is a proud alum (both Bachelor's and Master's degrees) of San Francisco State University!
Dr. Hileman's CV (PDF) (last updated February 2022)
Email Dr. Hileman at: lhileman@ku.edu
Amanda Katzer, PhD student
Amanda received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Kansas. She worked as a technician in the Hileman Lab for a year and a half before joining us as a graduate student. Amanda is using transcriptomic and morphometric approaches to study nectary evolution in Penstemon.
Email: Amanda at amandakatzer@ku.edu
Haylee Nedblake, Ph.D. student
Haylee received her Bachelor's degree from Park University. She also studied at the University of Hawaii (very cool!). Haylee is studying the genetic basis for differences in floral pigment intensity and flower shape between bee and hummingbird-adapted Penstemon species.
Email Haylee at: nedblake@ku.edu
Taylor Michael, Masters student
Taylor received her Bachelor's degree from Pittsburg State University in Kansas. In the Hileman lab, she is exploring the development of heterostyly and its effects on mating system in one of our beautiful prairie Penstemon species, P. cobeae.
Email Taylor: taylormichael@ku.edu
Lane Anaya, technician
Lane completed most of her Bachelor's degree from College of the Ozarks, finishing just her last year at the University of Kansas (due to the COVID pandemic). Lane is supporting our quantitative genetic work in Penstemon and developing/optimizing protocols for gene expression and functional (e.g., CRISPR) tools in Mimulus and Penstemon.
Email: Lane at brooklynmanaya@ku.edu
Percy Macek, undergraduate researcher
Percy is is contributing to our quantitative genetic work in Penstemon, and as an independent project is exploring the genetic basis of the trait "flowers per node" in Penstemon which strongly affects overall showiness of the inflorescences.
Aphid Sylvester, undergraduate researcher
Aphid is contributing to our quantitative genetic work in Penstemon, and is using microscopy and imageJ to collect and analyze Penstemon nectary trait data that contribute to Amanda's project on nectary genetics and evolution.
Former Emerging Scholar
Aspen Thomas, undergraduate researcher
Aspen is contributing to our efforts to optimize gene functional studies in Mimulus lewisii and Penstemon, both by exploring ways to optimize Pemstemon stable transformation, and by generating M. lewisii CRISPR lines.
Analin Escalante Pablo, undergraduate researcher
Analin is contributing to our quantitative genetic research in Penstemon.