Meet the Group

Matthew Wolak — Principle Investigator

Fascinated by variance. Don't even get him started on covariance. Investigates the causes of among individual variation and how they affect evolution by natural selection.

Olivia Brown — Research Assistant

Olivia received a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Ecology and Management from Auburn University in 2022. Olivia's general interests are in ecology, evolution, and conservation. During her undergraduate career, Olivia developed and executed a research project studying boldness behavior of semi-aquatic freshwater turtles. As a Research Assistant, Olivia hopes to contribute to our growing understanding of ecology and evolution as well as encourage an inclusive and productive lab environment for every member.

Graduate Students

Jacob Botello — Ph.D. Candidate

Newt enthusiast.

Molly Folkerts Caldwell — Ph.D. Candidate

Co-advisor: Dan Warner

Molly received a Bachelor of Science in Zoology from Auburn University in 2012 and went on to complete a Master’s degree in Field and Organismal Biology from Louisiana State University in Shreveport. Her Master's thesis research was on variation in Green Heron nesting success in coastal marshes of southwest Louisiana. After finishing her Master's, she worked for over 3 years in coastal bird monitoring and conservation with Audubon Mississippi Coastal Bird Stewardship Program (National Audubon Society), protecting beach-nesting bird species such as the Least Tern and Black Skimmer. Although she has spent the last several years working with birds, Molly has always loved herps and is excited to begin studying yellow-bellied sliders and temperature-dependent sex determination. Molly's general interests are in conservation, reproductive biology, ecology, and evolution. Her ultimate goal is to pursue a career in which she can work to conserve imperiled species of the southeastern US.

Iwo Gross — Ph.D. Candidate

Iwo’s baccalaureate and master’s work investigated the space-use patterns of diminutive snake species and newborn pit-vipers with respect to road ecology and forest management practices. As a Ph.D. student, Iwo intends to expand his research scope to assess how natural, sexual, and anthropogenic pressures within an ecosystem shape turtle demographics and life-history evolution. In his free time, Iwo practices jiu-jitsu and judo, and enjoys recreational surveys for amphibians and reptiles.

Kyndall Skelton — Ph.D. Student

Kyndall is an AU undergraduate that is beginning a Ph.D. studying the quantitative genetics of sexual conflict in our seed beetle system.

Logan Havard — M.Sc. Student

Co-advisor: Laurie Stevison

Logan received his Bachelor of Science in Biology and Mathematics from William Carey University in Hattiesburg, MS, in 2021. He taught high school math and science in his hometown of Lucedale, MS, for two years before starting his master’s work at Auburn. While Logan enjoyed his time as a high school educator, he decided to deepen his knowledge and passion for science by pursuing research. He is broadly interested in evolutionary genetics, conservation, and bioinformatics. As part of his master’s thesis, Logan is developing a recombination map of the Mississippi diamond-backed terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin pileata) to understand how genetic variation is maintained in turtle populations.

Undergraduate Researchers

McKae Sarkowski — AU Undergraduate Research Fellow

McKae is interested in evolutionary ecology and conservation. She is developing an independent project to study aspects of mate choice and sexual selection in wild pond sliders. To do this, she is helping to pioneer efforts in the lab to 3-D print slider decoys from scanned museum specimens and implement a PIT tag based monitoring system in our study ponds. McKae is an Organismal Biology major in our Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior track.

Justin Jenkins — NSF-REU

Justin is an undergraduate student at the University of Miami pursuing a B.S. in Marine Biology and Ecology. Justin has always had a passion for turtles and the marine environment and is excited to study the behavior of semi-aquatic turtles in Alabama. In the future, he intends to go to graduate school to conduct research on sea turtle demographics and behavior, and eventually pursue a career in sea turtle conservation. Throughout his career, he hopes to promote diversity in the field of science and the protection of our natural environment.