PI
Greg Ragland
Assosicate Professor
Department of Integrative Biology
University of Colorado, Denver
Campus Box 171
Denver, CO 80217-3364
gregory DOT ragland AT ucdenver DOT edu
Greg Ragland. I have been on the faculty in the Department of Integrative Biology at CU Denver since 2016. When I am not immersed in bugs and data, I am usually wrangling my daughters, hiking, running, or cycling.
Postdocs
Currently searching for a postdoc to start summer 2025.
Graduate Students
Ellie Tushar. Ellie completed a BS at Miami University, Ohio in 2024. Her thesis project focuses on the evolution of transcriptional responses underlying short term acclimation in Drosophila species.
Undergraduate Researchers
Adam Haddad (Picture coming soon!). Adam manages flies for our fly genetics CURE and is working on ATACseq experiments exploring the regulatory landscape of thermal acclimation.
Yasmine Barache (Picture coming soon!. Yasmine assists with various fly experiments supporting ongoing work in the lab.
Lab Alumni
Postdocs
Shelly McCain. Shelly was a postdoc in the lab from 2021 to 2023 studying the developmental underpinnings of insect diapause development. Shelly also led the development of a course-based undergraduate research experience (CURE) on fly genetics that we now regularly deliver to hundreds of students per semester in out intro bio for majors series. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at National Jewish Health in Denver.
James Demayo. Jimmy was a postdoc in the lab from 2021 to 2024 studying the evolution of transcriptional plasticity across Drosophila species. Jimmy also co-lead the development of our fly genetics CURE with Shelly McCain. He is currently on the faculty at the University of Denver.
Jantina Toxopeus (website) was a postdoc in the lab from 2018 – 2020 studying the relationship between overwintering and thermal hardiness in several insect systems. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Biology at St. Francis Xavier University.
Eddy Dowle (website) was a postdoc in the lab from 2015 – 2017 studying local adaptation and population structure in the Mountain Pine Beetle and developmental transcriptomics of diapause regulation in apple maggot flies. She is currently a researcher at the University of Otago.
Graduate Students
Marianne Davenport (website) was a graduate student in the lab from 2018 – 2020 studying the life history and population dynamics of the spruce bark beetle, a major forest pest in western North America. She is currently a Forest Entomologist for the US Forest Service, based at the Fed center in Lakewood, CO.
McCall Calvert (Mac). Mac completed his MS at CUDenver in 2019. He studied the genomics underlying Rhagoletis pomonella seasonality and diapause. He has just completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania studying plant-microbe interactions and will be moving on to a postdoc at NYU.
Phil Freda. (website) worked in the Ragland lab starting in 2014 when we were based at Kansas State University. He completed his PhD on the genetics and ontogenetic flexibility of thermal hardiness at KSU in 2018, co-advised by Greg and Ted Morgan. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Cedars Sinai.
Lahari Gadey. Lahari completed her MS in 2021 and conducted experiments testing how flies (Drosophila spp.) regulate their gene expression to tolerate low temperatures. She is currently a lab manager and associate researcher at Carnegie Mellon.
Joseph Tucker. Joe completed his MS in 2022 studying the influence of temperature on nascent transcription and the thermal limits of transcription. He is currently in the PhD program at CU Denver working on toxicology and environmental monitoring.
Jasmine Vidrio. Jasmine completed her MS in 2024 studying hormetic relationships between moderate thermal exposures, acclimation, and chilling injury. She is currently a program manager at the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities.
Undergraduates
Gage Tidwell. Gage assisted grad student Jasmine Vidrio in her thesis work exploring hermetic effects on rapid cold hardening in Drosophila melanogaster.
Gabi Dudek. Gabi worked on a number of fly projects and conducted independent study on the gut microbiome of Rhagoletis flies feeding on alternate diets.
Zach Courter. Zach had primary interests in science communication and in addition to wrangling flies completed a project documenting our lab’s work to develop a CURE based on transgenic drosophila.
Jenna Tomkinson. Jenna was funded by a university EURECA fellowship to study changes in gene expression across a major life history transition (metamorphosis in Drosophila melanogaster).
Lalitya Andaloori. Lalitya worked on the overwintering metabolism of rose flies (Rhagoletis basiola) distributed across altitudinal gradients in the Colorado Rockies.
Matin Sanaei. Matin studied how neurons develop in Rhagoletis brains.
Isaiah Sower. Isaiah conducted field research on bark beetle phenology.
Nooshin Sanaei. Nooshin worked on many projects as an undergraduate assistant and later as a lab technician, including developing IHC techniques for tracking diapause brain development that underly current projects in the lab.
Adam Schieferecke was a summer research assistant who mined genomic and transcriptomic data for diapause candidate genes and worked with Phil on thermal physiology experiments in spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii).
Evan Keep worked on gene orthology and comparative transcriptomics as a summer REU student.
collaborators
Dan Hahn and Tom Powell (U. Florida), Jeff Feder and Mike Pfrender (Notre Dame), Barbara Bentz (USDA), Karen Mock (Utah State U.), Stewart Berlocher and Hugh Robertson (U. Illinois), Martin Schebeck (BOKU, Vienna). Photo credit: Hannes Schuler.
Ragland Lab 