People

Ezra Bailey, PhD Student
Wiegmann Laboratories
North Carolina State University
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Expertise: Completed bachelor's degree in biology at NCSU while an undergraduate researcher. Has developed a sterilization technique for Cochliomyia macellaria for gut microbiome transplants to study the microbiome's role in feeding preferences.
Role in the project: Ezra is characterizing the role of the gut microbiome in feeding preferences, studying polymorphisms in Lucilia cuprina subspecies, and estimating the degree of phylosymbiosis in the blow flies.

Letícia Baldassio, PhD Student
Torres Laboratory
University of São Paulo

Expertise: Completed bachelor and licentiate degrees in biology at the University of São Paulo. Completed master's degree in the zoology department in Silvio Nihei's lab. Studied the subfamilies of tachinids flies relationship using transcriptomic data.
Role in the project: Leticia is collecting species in Brazil and studing polymorphisms and divergence between populations of two blowflies species.

Cristian Fernando Beza-Beza, PhD
PostDoctoral Fellow
North Carolina State University
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Expertise: Cristian graduated from the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala in 2009 with a Licentiate Degree in Biology, Wichita State University in 2013 with a Masters Degree in biological sciences, and The University of Memphis in 2019 with a PhD in Biological sciences. His research interests are in the fields of evolution, systematics, and drivers of diversification.
Role in the project: Cristian is working on reconstructing a robust phylogenetic framework for Calliphoridae which will be utilized to study the evolution of feeding habits within the family and as a framework for taxonomic revision. Additionally, he is studying the role of the gut microbiome in feeding preferences of the genus Cochliomyia.

Vanessa Cunha, PhD Student
Torres Laboratory
University of São Paulo

Expertise: Vanessa completed her bachelor's degree in biology and masters degree at the University of Sao Paulo during which she developed a strong interest in studying the relationship between environment, phenotype, and genotype.
Role in the project: Vanessa is studying the evolution of genes related to trophic habit and correlating them with behavior and life-history traits in a phylogenetic framework, looking for the most likely selective regimes acting on these genes, and doing an Evolve and Resequence experiment in Lucilia cuprina. She is also coordinating a review on Calliphoridae feeding habits.

Diniz Ferreira, PhD Student
Torres Laboratory
University of São Paulo

Expertise: Diniz graduated from the Federal University of Pelotas in 2021 in Biological Sciences. He is interested in genomics of non-model organisms, functional genomics and experimental evolution.
Role in the project: Diniz is currently working in an 'Evolve and Resequencing' experiment of Chryosmya albiceps, a facultative parasite species of blowflies. He aims to find genetic variants in the genome of lineages undergoing artificial selection over several generations in different diets. Concurrently, Diniz is also working on the genome sequencing, assembly and annotation of 5 species of blowflies with different trophic specializations.

Rachael Laminack, PhD Student
Scott Laboratory
NC State University
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Expertise: Rachel graduated from NC State University in 2020 with a Bachelors of Science in Plant Biology, and a minor in Entomology. After working in a molecular diagnostics lab for almost a year, Rachel came back to NCSU to work on her PhD.
Role in the project: Rachel is studying the functions of non-coding RNA genes in different life stages of Lucilia cuprina in the Scott Laboratory.

Pedro Mariano Martins, Masters Student
Torres Laboratory
University of São Paulo

Expertise: Completed bachelor and licentiate degrees in biology at the University of São Paulo. In his undergraduate research project, Pedro investigated the molecular evolution patterns of developmental genes in spiders to better understand the evolution of spinnerets.
Role in the project: Pedro is analyzing the available genomic and transcriptomic data of many Calliphoridae species with different feeding habits in the larval stage. He is comparing the expression profile and the sequence evolution in these species and searching for correlations between these patterns and their ecology.

Kelly A. Meiklejohn, PhD
Assistant Professor of Forensic Science
North Carolina State University
College of Veterinary Medicine
kameikle@ncsu.edu

Expertise: Completed PhD in flesh flies, one of the sister families to the blowflies. Her PhD research involved mophological updates, species descriptions and molecular systematics of the Australian flesh fly fauna.
Role in the project (Co-PI, NSF): Dr Meiklejohn facilitated blowfly specimen acquisition from collaborators across the globe. She is also leading the development of the online data resource for blowflies.

Aram Mikaelyan, PhD
Assistant Professor of Entomology
North Carolina State University
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
amikael@ncsu.edu

Expertise: The Mikaelyan Lab research revolves around the role of microbes in insect trophic specialization. Projects in his lab investigate this role at the physiological, behavioral and evolutionary levels, drawing on a wide range of approaches, including enzymology, microbial ecology, and systematics.
Role in the project (Co-PI, NSF): Dr Mikaelyan leads the microbiological "dimension" of the project, that investigates how trophic shifts in blowfly evolution are reflected in their associated microbiomes. With Dr. Wiegmann, Aram co-supervises Ezra Bailey and Dr. Beza-Beza in different aspects of this question.

Patricia Jacqueline Thyssen, PhD
Associate Professor
University of Campinas (UNICAMP)

Expertise: Dr. Thyssen received her Ph.D. in Parasitology from the UNICAMP, with her thesis on taxonomy and biology of necrophagous blow flies of forensic and medical importance. Her current primary research interest is in the taxonomy, biology and behavior of blow flies.
Role in the project (PI, FAPESP): Dr Thyssen is supervising studies on the influence of microorganisms on the behavior of necrophagous and parasitic blowflies.

Tatiana Teixeira Torres, PhD
Associate Professor
Universidade de São Paulo
tttorres@ib.usp.br

Expertise: Completed her PhD on population genetics of the New World screwworm fly, Cochliomyia hominivorax. Her current primary research interest is in the genetic basis and evolution of complex traits. Much of her work has been on functional and comparative genomics in flies, true bugs, ticks, and spiders.
Role in the project (PI, FAPESP): Dr Torres is coordinating the Brazilian team, leading population genetics and comparative genomic studies, including the Evolve and Resequence experiments in Lucilia cuprina and Chrysomya albiceps.

D. Wes Watson, PhD
Professor of Entomology
North Carolina State University
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
wwatson@ncsu.edu
919-513-2028

Expertise: Dr. Watson is a specialist on the role of flies in disease transmission and management, including attractants for trapping technologies. His laboratory has an olfactometer that has been used in previous experiments with blowflies to assess behavior.
Role in the project (Co-PI, NSF): Dr. Watson will be characterizing the response of blow flies to volatile compounds that trigger host and resource seeking behaviors using an olfactometer.

Brian Wiegmann, PhD
William Neal Reynolds Professor of Entomology
North Carolina State University
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
bwiegman@ncsu.edu

Expertise: The Wiegmann lab is focused on reconstructing the phylogeny of true flies (insect order Diptera) to better understand their evolutionary history, the origins and impacts of trophic specializations, and species diversification in time and space. The Wiegmann Lab is using phylogenomic methods to study the fly tree at multiple levels -- from deep relationships among the earliest diverging lineages, to exploring species radiations among groups of medical (mosquitoes), agricultural, and veterinary importance (leafmining flies, blow flies, true fruit flies, house flies).
Role in the project (PI, NSF): Dr. Wiegmann leads phylogenetic and macroevolutionary aspects of the project, and co-directs students and postdocs in phylogenomic, population genetic, and macroevolutionary hypothesis-testing research projects.

Juan Pedro Wulff, PhD
PostDoctoral Fellow
North Carolina State University
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Expertise: I have previous experience working with neuropeptides, G-protein coupled receptors and chemoreceptors. My current goal is to use CRISPR/Cas9 tools for the functional characterization of target genes, potentially useful for blowfly’s species with agronomic impact.
Role in the project: Work in collaboration with colleagues from the Scott Lab and other groups to carry out a characterization of potential target genes for blowfly control, in particular for the species Lucilia cuprina cuprina and Cochliomyia macellaria. Genes associated with olfaction-host seeking in adults and larvae, and female oviposition will be prioritized.