Trish Schulte, Principle Investigator
BSc, MSc: UBC, PhD: Stanford
Trish received her BSc (hon) and MSc in Zoology from the University of British Columbia and her PhD in Biology from Stanford University at Hopkins Marine Station. She then took up a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Waterloo, moving to the Department of Zoology at UBC in 2001, where she is now a Full Professor. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Her work has been recognized by the American Fisheries Society with an Award of Excellence in fish physiology (2016). She is a past president of the Canadian Society of Zoologists and an editor with the Journal of Experimental Biology.
Rush Dhillon, Cartoonist and Lab Manager
MSc: Trent University, PhD: Queen’s University, Post-doctoral fellow: UBC and University of Wisconsin
Rush is a mitochondrial physiologist and biochemist examining the function of mitochondrial proteins under stress-induced post translational modifications. The metabolic consequences of aging, hypoxia, thermal stress, and hibernation are of particular interest, as are the interactions between the mitochondria and nucleus. After post doctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rush has returned to UBC to help out in the Schulte lab and launch a part-time cartooning career.
Madison Earhart, PhD Candidate
BSc: MSState, MSc: U Manitoba
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Madison is a PhD student focused on the conservation of fish. During her masters, Madison studied the development of the stress response in larval Lake Sturgeon, a threatened species native to Manitoba. Now in her PhD, Madison is investigating how developmental environments influence genomic, transcriptomic and epigenetic responses as well as physiology and behaviour of fish. Specifically, Madison is interested in the effects of domestication through hatchery-rearing, in multiple species of fish including Rainbow Trout, White Sturgeon and Coho Salmon. The goals of Madison’s Phd are 1) to identify the underlying genetic mechanisms driving the differences between domesticated and wild fish and 2) to make beneficial changes to hatcheries to ensure the success of released fish.
Tessa Blanchard, PhD Candidate
BSc: UOTtawa, MSc: Guelph
Tessa is a developmental physiologist. She completed her MSc at the University of Guelph in Dr. Pat Wright’s lab where she studied how the plastic respiratory system of amphibious fishes improves their performance out of water. For her PhD thesis, she is interested in understanding how fishes utilize plasticity from a physiological, transcriptomic and epigenomic perspective to cope with variable temperatures during early development. Furthermore, her research aims to address the long-term effects of early exposure to variable temperatures on adult thermal tolerance and life-history traits.
Adam Harman, PhD Student
BSc: Dalhousie University, MSc: McMaster University
Adam is PhD student studying natural differences in the thermal tolerance of common killifish along the east coast of North America. During his MSc in Dr. Joanna Wilson’s lab at McMaster University, Adam studied plastic changes in the thermal preference of lake and round whitefish in response to elevated embryonic incubation temperatures. He is most interested in how fish and other aquatic species will respond to global increases in water temperature caused by anthropogenic climate change.
Beatrice Rost-Komiya, MSc Student
BSc: UBC
Bea completed her BSc at UBC in 2018, and joined the Schulte lab as a Master’s student in 2019. Her undergraduate research under the supervision of Dr. Diane Srivastava focused on the effects of bromeliads on arboreal ant communities. Currently, her focus is the behavioural and physiological response to stress in the Atlantic Killifish, in the context of changing water temperatures as a result of climate change.
Clark McMaster, MSc Student
BSc: U Regina
Clark’s undergraduate research focused on genetic editing in prokaryotes, and studying interactions between modified plant pathogens and Canada thistle. Later in his degree he developed an interest in population genetics, specifically in the genetic differences between wild and hatchery-raised salmonids. Now in his MSc, Clark is interested in the physiological differences between wild and hatchery-raised fishes at both a genetic and morphological level, in addition to the general impact of hatchery introgression on wild populations.
Ben Staples, MSc Student
BSc: Guelph
Ben completed his B.Sc at the University of Guelph in 2020 before moving to Vancouver to start his Master’s degree in the Schulte Lab. During his undergraduate degree, he majored in molecular biology and studied protein cell signalling underlying aggressive breast cancer invasion for his thesis project. In the Schulte lab, he hopes to combine his interests in molecular and conservation biology. For his project, he will be examining the epigenetic response of Atlantic Killifish to variable ocean temperature, initially concentrating on DNA methylation patterns.
Ariel Shatsky, Undergraduate Researcher
Ariel began volunteering in the Schulte Lab in summer of 2019 and has aided in fish care as well as various laboratory and field experiments. She is interested in the cardiac physiology of killifish throughout embryonic development. In a directed studies project, she will be investigating the effect of temperature on the heart rate of killifish embryos and the role of cardiac genes throughout development.