heather eisthen
As PI, Heather spends too much time at her computer and going to meetings and not enough time doing experiments.
madyson blake
Madyson is a freshman who is carrying out behavioral experiments with ball pythons.
nick demski
Nick is a senior who is studying toxin production in bacteria.
josh iizuka
Josh is a senior who is studying development of toxin-storing glands in newts.
jake kuschel
Jake is a senior and expert on snake husbandry who runs our animal room.
santiago rodriguez castro
Santiago is a graduate student interested in sensory processing and brain evolution in snakes.
taylor rupp
Taylor is a graduate student studying courtship communication and its neural basis in axolotls.
julia walton
Julia is a junior who studies microbial-produced toxins.
samantha westcott
Samantha is a graduate student who is studying mechanisms underlying toxin production in newts.
asia wheeler
Asia is a sophomore and herp expert who will be overseeing our animal facility when Jake graduates.
claire zahra
Claire is a junior who is cultivating novel toxin-producing bacteria from newts.
recent collaborators
Gary Bucciarelli, UC Davis
Aretha Fiebig, MSU
Jeanette McGuire, MSU
Lauren O’Connell, Stanford University
eisthen lab 