Lisa Wallace, Lab PI

In 2017 I relocated from Mississippi State University to Old Dominion University as the J. Robert Stiffler Professor of Botany.  I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Virginia and attended the College of William and Mary for B.S. and M.A. degrees before heading to Ohio for a PhD from The Ohio State University and then on to the University of South Dakota for a postdoctoral appointment.  My research interests span plant systematics, evolution, and biogeography, and I focus research on native orchids. I also serve as Curator of the ODU Herbarium, Faculty Director of the Kaplan Orchid Conservatory, and Director of Science at Norfolk Botanical Garden.   

Martín Batalla, PhD student

Photo of MartinMartín is working with Nototriche (Malvaceae), a genus of more than 100 species distributed along the Andes in South America. He is especially interested in producing a phylogeny of the genus, along with studying the distribution patterns of polyploids, which are prevalent in this group. Having been born and raised in Argentina, he is excited to work in this region of the world along with the people in it.

 

Meghan Britton, PhD student

Meghan recently joined the lab after several years as a middle school science teacher. Meghan is focusing her dissertation research on urban ecology and looking at urban greenspaces as potential habitats for milkweeds and the Monarch butterflies that rely on these plants. 

 

Devani and Acorn

Devani Jolman, PhD student

 

Devani joined the lab in August 2021. She is interested in how the prevalence and function of interspecific hybridization in plants have been influenced by human impact. This research aims to better understand the role of hybridization in a changing climate. In her free time, she loves to trail-run, surf, play board games, and snuggle with her adorable pup, Acorn.

 

 

Ray Volkin, MS student 

Ray will join the lab this fall to begin work on her MS degree in biology.  She also serves as the Plant Recorder at the Norfolk Botanical Garden. 

Sofia Baez, BS biology student

Sofia was one of our first TREEBUD researchers last summer and has stayed on to help out with several projects in the lab. She is currently studying variation in the Platanthera flava complex using herbarium specimens. 

Laura George, BS biology student

Laura was another of our TREEBUD researchers last summer.  She worked with Devani to study hybridization in highbush blueberries and began her own project to investigate genetic variation in the hybrids. 

Graduate alumni of the lab

  • Dr. Mabi Nobarinezhad graduated in 2020 and is now a research associate with a private company. In her dissertation, Mabi focused on plant-rhizobia interactions, studying fine-scale spatial structure in plant hosts and their microbial symbionts and genetic structure in plants with broad geographic distributions.

  • Dr. Eranga Wettewa graduated in 2020. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, she is now a senior scientist in genomics at a private company. Her dissertation research focused on systematics, taxonomy and biogeography of Platanthera subgenus Limnorchis (Orchidaceae). 

  • Hanna Dorman, M.S., studied geographic variation in rhizobia associated with Chamaecrista fasciculata (Fabaceae) for her M.S. thesis and molecular evolution of the gene Nsp1 in Acmispon (Fabaceae) for her undergraduate research.

  • Dr. Greg Wheeler is a bioinformatics specialist. Greg studied phylogeography of California Channel Island Acmispon for his M.S. thesis and the utility of plastid microsatellites in Acmispon (Fabaceae) for his undergraduate research in my lab.

  • Dr. Binaya Adhikari is a Lecturer at Longwood University. Binaya studied genetic and morphological variation within Platanthera dilatata (Orchidaceae) for his M.S. thesis.

  • Dr. Lavanya Challagundla, PhD, is currently a bioinformatics specialist at a university medical center.  Lavanya studied genetic and morphological variation in several species of Xanthisma (Asteraceae) for her dissertation.