Congratulations to Jon Lam and Bergen Foshay -- Happy Graduation!
Congratulations to two amazing undergraduate EEMB majors and members of the Mazer lab: Jonathan Lam and Bergen Foshay. Jon and Bergen just celebrated their graduation with Distinction in the Major, after having completed their own research projects on the evolutionary ecology of Nemophila menziesii (Baby Blue Eyes: Boraginaceae). Bergen was an REU student in the Mazer lab during summer 2022 and worked for many additional months with M.S. student Lisa Kim to detect ontogenetic and genetic sources of variation in seed mass in Nemophila menziesii while also serving as a spectacular mentor to incoming undergraduate lab members. Jonathan's research was designed to detect and to measure the independent effects of above-ground stem biomass and corolla size on genotypic fitness in four experimental field populations of N. menziesii, revealing that stem biomass has consistent and positive effects on lifetime fecundity within populations distributed across an aridity gradient while corolla area contributes little (directly) to individual fitness. Bergen is currently working as a research assistant in Dr. Benjamin Blackman's lab at UC Berkeley, while Jonathan's first postgraduate adventures await him! We will sorely miss these incredibly energetic, enthusiastic, and irreplaceable friends, researchers, and tamers of R!