Bummed to miss #Evol2026. For all those students looking for a position, we're recruiting MS students (polyploid genomics) and a PostDoc (conservation genomics) for next year. Shoot me an email!

With the #BYI announcement buzz settled, I’ve been reflecting on what this award means to me. 🎓 It’s a win for R2s, a boost for #wildlifegenomics 🐸🧬🖥️, and a testament to my @rittigers.bsky.social lab of students ✨ Reflections here: bit.ly/4xGNhX9 Thank you to @beckman-foundation.bsky.social!

One of the best parts of any conference is meeting the next generation of amazing researchers ✨🐸 Thank you to the #GARD2026 team for organizing a great #mentorship program. We had great chats & made friendship bracelets! 🏆 Shout out to Lars Westerlinck who won a student presentation award!

The MEGA Lab has been having a blast at #GARD2026 in Knoxville which just so happens to be placed next to the “Salamander Capital of the World” 💖 The week has been filled with great research, conversations, and so many #amphibians & #reptiles 🐸🦎🦠🌈🧬 #whyistherestillnosalamanderemoji

✨ So proud of @ritscience.bsky.social MS student, Emma Thompson, for delivering a great flash talk about her research on #thermalecology & #microbiomes at #GARD2026! 🎉 🦠🐸 She impressed a large international audience of #herp disease experts. #proudmentor @gardconference.bsky.social

Interested in #macroevolution, #macroecology, and mountain biodiversity? I'm recruiting a #postdoc for an NSF-funded project at Yale, in collaboration with Martha Muñoz (Yale) and Maya Stokes (Florida State University). I'll be at #Evol2026 and happy to chat! Link below

Beyond honored to be named a 2026 Beckman Young Investigator #BYI! I can’t wait to get started on this work with my wonderful lab of students and to contribute much-needed genomic resources to the field of #amphibiangenomics! 🐸🧬

I have three amazing students presenting posters at #GARD2026! Come chat with them and get a salamander sticker ✨🙌🏻

My amazing student Emma Thompson successfully defended her MS in Enviro Sci @rittigers.bsky.social! I am so honored to have been part of Emma’s journey and cant wait to see what she accomplishes at Rutgers’ Ecology PhD program! 🌟🎉🐸🦠🧬 Stay tuned for her 2 pubs combining #microbialecology & #omics!

The MEGA Lab had a great time showing off our research on amphibian genomics and environmental microbiomes at #ImagineRIT! We spoke to over 400 people about the powerful integration of molecular biology and ecology/evolution research 🦠🔬🧬🐸🌎 @rittigers.bsky.social @ritscience.bsky.social

✨Amphibian migration has begun here in Rochester, NY 🐸 I drafted a guide on my website on how to “herp” responsibly from a conservation scientist’s perspective. Please share! megalabrit.weebly.com/responsible-... #conservation #amphibian #communityscience #herpetology #ecology

Happy International Women’s Day! Thankful for all the funny, strong, creative, compassionate, supportive, and intelligent women in my life, especially those I get to share my lab with @rittigers.bsky.social! 💖✨🧬🔬 #WomeninSTEM #InternationalWomensDay

As a fun lab meeting activity right before break, one of my students designed a @jeopardyofficial.bsky.social game about our lab! My favorite category was “slack quotes.” Feeling so lucky to have such amazing @ritscience.bsky.social students! 💖

#MicroSky 🌎🐸🐢🐍🦎🦠🧫

Last call for abstracts! Join us at the Global Amphibian & Reptile Disease conference 🐸🐍🦎🐢🌎🦠🧬🧪

If you are a student whose NSF GRFP application was returned without review for vague 'eligibility' reasons: 1) Let your department chair & Graduate School know. Encourage them to contact NSF & congress 2) Write to your congressional reps. 3) Write to [email protected] to request re-consideration;

Just a little over a week left to submit your abstract for #GARD26! 🧪🌎🧬🦠 🐸 Don’t miss out on networking with other herpetologists around the #salamander capital of the world!

Registration is open! 🧪🌎

Calling all herpers, ecologists, & #conservation researchers! 🧪🌏 🌟Join us in Knoxville! #GARD26 #microbiology #disease #herpetology #ecology

🧪🧬🌎

We want to hear about your research! Spread the word and apply by Feb 1, 2026 🌎🐸🦠

Come be my colleague! Our college at RIT 🐅 has recently secured funding for four new professorships including one in #ecology & #evolution thanks to @simonsfoundation.org! ✨🧬🎉🧪🌎 www.rit.edu/news/simons-...

Are you a researcher studying amphibian & reptile disease? We want to hear about your research! Come join us at #GARD26 in Knoxville 🌎 Please share! #conservation #herpetology

Applications for travel grants to #GARD26 are due Nov. 1st! We encourage diverse participation especially by those with limited financial resources and early career researchers. Join us in Knoxville! 🐸🐍🐢🌎 Apply: utconferences.eventsair.com/third-gard-c... #herpetology #amphibian #reptile

For thousands of years, humans have harnessed microbes to ferment beer and bread. But ecologist Rob Dunn asks: Who’s really in charge of this relationship? buff.ly/BZyFzN6

🌍 Languages of Life | Línguas da Vida | Bahasa Kehidupan 🗣️🌱 Biodiversity doesn’t speak only English. 🌳🐒 If species cross borders, our words should too. New paper in @ConLetters : why saving life also means using more languages 🔗https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/conl.13139

Please share with anyone who cares about NSF support for graduate students and take 30 seconds to sign and leave a comment. The deadline for the 2025 Graduate Research Fellowship Program is about one month away and literally no one can apply. #NSFGRFP jasonjwilliamsny.github.io/grfp2025/

An update to the Zoo Sphere of Influence model was recently published in the Biological Conservation journal (tinyurl.com/zoosphere) This model, first conceived in 2023, originally set out to replace the 50-year-old perception of zoos and aquariums... 🌎1/4

My amazing @ritscience.bsky.social student, Emma, attended Princeton EEB scholars program last week. So proud of her! She is looking for #PhD programs this cycle so if you are looking for a student that can bridge field, lab, and computational biology… she is the PERFECT person for your lab! 👩🏼‍🔬🧬✨

Come join us as we plan for the Global Amphibian & Reptile Disease Conference 2026! 🐸🐍🐢🦎🦠🌎

📖Published📖 Neshat et al. introduce MicroEcoTools, an R package designed to test ecological framework predictions using microbial community data 🦠 🌎 🧪 Read the article here 👇 buff.ly/sXnPdhO

It’s a bacterium-eats-bacterium world… www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

30+ dead turtles alongside NY Highway 90 killed by cars as they try to cross from @deptfishwildlife.bsky.social Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge 🤬😭 @governor.ny.gov we need wildlife crossings! @dec.ny.gov

Another project from my time @jgi.doe.gov published @phytobiomesjournal.bsky.social ! Using a greenhouse soil transplant experiment we uncover the core microbiome of Camelina & show how past cropping regimes/precipitation can exert a legacy effect on microbiome assembly 🌾🦠🧬🧪 doi.org/10.1094/PBIO...

URGENT: The scientists' letter must be signed before May 19, when comments close. 🌎

Professors at USGS coop units were absolutely critical parts of my education at 3 different universities. They're probably affiliated with more useful conservation research than any other agency on earth. Join the rally to defend science next week! 🌎🐟🦉🐍🦊🌿🧪 #hydrology #Invert mobilize.us/s/JyAqUI

In happier news: the MEGA Lab @rittigers.bsky.social celebrated the successful defense of our first MS student! ✨ @trminahan.bsky.social did an amazing job summarizing the last two years of research on salamander microbiomes. It is a MASSIVE dataset! Stay tuned for our preprint this summer 🐸🧬🧫🦠🌎

Getting a doctorate is hard work and it absolutely sucks when people swap out that hard-won gender-neutral expert title for something that both ignores your expertise and dismisses your gender. Apparently I'm not the only one who feels like this because you bought enough pins for me to make more!

Important 🧵 if your research depends on genome assemblies from long (PacBio / ONT) reads. As @merenbey.bsky.social says, these may not be the genomes you are looking for. TLDR: the assemblers are wrong and predict too many small circular contigs.

Our lab had a great time at our first #ImagineRIT event this weekend. Students talked to 500+ members of the public about their research in microbial ecology & genomics, and gave away lots of salamander swag! 🐸🧬👩🏼‍🔬👨🏻‍🔬🧪🌎🔬 @rittigers.bsky.social

Our commentary on the elegant in vitro microbiome coalescence experiments from @goldmandoran.bsky.social @ksxue.bsky.social et al is out. It was a pleasure to write about one of my favorite microbiome papers of the last few years. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Happy salamander season to all who celebrate ✨🌈

Amazing postdoc opportunity! Fletcher is a great mentor and wonderful human! Plus, Oregon is pretty darn beautiful.

Our framework explaining why ecological interactions change between contexts is out in Ecology Letters! A lovely collaboration with @saramitri.bsky.social which provides experimentally-testable links between the physiology and ecology of microbes. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Hey All, plz repost, and share with grads, post-docs and disease folks! We are hiring a post-doc to work on mechanisms of immune responses of frog hosts to Bd infections. Deadline is February 1, 2025. Details for the position can be found at the link below. 🐸🐸🐸 zamudiolab.org/2024/12/17/p...

Over 30 prominent scientists call for a ban on the creation of a "mirror cell"--a microbe made of molecules that are mirror images of their natural forms. It could cause a mind-boggling global disaster. Here's my story [gift link] 🧪https://nyti.ms/3OUCXp6

Is it “winner-takes all” when the simplest living things compete? Check out my fresh publication on phage coexistence in Science and a thread below🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

So grateful to @hhmi.bsky.social for this @pbs.org 15 min documentary about our Amphibian Rescue project - more than a million views 👏🏼🐸❤️ m.youtube.com/watch?v=WXK6...