Skylar Hopkins, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor
Skylar is the Principal Investigator in the Sustainable Health Ecology Lab. She is a member of the Global Change and Human Well-being Cluster and an affiliate of the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center. She’s a quantitative ecologist who focuses her research on the intersection of conservation and parasite/disease ecology, with an overarching goal to understand how parasites are maintained in complex socio-ecological systems. You can learn more about some of that work under the Research tab! Skylar teaches Global Change Ecology and Parasite and Disease Ecology and is trying to share disease ecology with even more people through the Parasite Ecology blog and a textbook that she is currently co-writing. She advises graduate students through the Biology Graduate Program and the Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Graduate Program and she advises undergraduate students through the Applied Ecology Minor Program. Visit the Prospective Lab Member tab to learn more about research opportunities with SHEL!
Cory McKinstry – Ph.D. Student
Cory is a Ph.D. student in the Sustainable Health Ecology Lab. Cory has an interdisciplinary background in genetics, molecular disease ecology, and field ecology in places like Puerto Rico, Hawai’i, Texas, and southern Africa. For his Ph.D., Cory is researching how host and parasite thermal biology influences snake fungal disease, with a particular focus on lessons we can learn for surveillance and wildlife management in the face of climate change. Cory spent his first year at NCSU as a Global Change Fellow with the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, and was later awarded the prestigious Simon’s Graduate Fellowship in Ecology and Evolution.
Kara Vold
Kara came to our lab with a background in veterinary medicine due to her many years as a vet tech. She helped us develop new, standardized methods for quantifying snake immune function and protozoan blood parasites using blood smears from snakes caught and released in the field.
Lab Supervisor- Carrot
Carrot the Dog is in charge of Skylar’s work–life balance, keeping track of the lunch boxes and snacks, and preventing people from accidentally stepping on herps in the field.
Our current undergraduate students:
- Bryce Carrington
- Noga Wasserberg
Lab members who have moved on to other exciting things:
- Zach Gajewski (postdoctoral scholar)
- Kenize Pereira (postdoctoral scholar)
- Alex Nelson (prior PhD student)
- Emily Kersting (prior Master’s student)
- Erin Foy (non-thesis Master’s student)
- Nemesis Namboothiri (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Helen Dandulakis (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Madelyn Young (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Tristan Plummer (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Cristina Payst (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Peyton Godwin (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Bee Collins (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Matthew Keough-Lopez (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Bryn Kulp (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Emma Castner (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Jake Buenviaje (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Chloe Farrell (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Ava Smith (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Cristian Choto (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Trisha Belus (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Victor Shr (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Kara Vold (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Riley McClanahan (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Abigail Finch (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Katherine Stalford (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Fatiah Algharazi (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Kamber Lovill (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Hannah Widdowson (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Garrett Morgan (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Teddy Sarian (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Hamilton McInnis (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Trey Jeffers (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Sophie Meng (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Lily Zeller (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Hannah Cooper (Undergraduate Researcher)
- Alex Tung (Undergraduate Researcher)
Sustainable Health Ecology Lab 