Principle Investigator
Dr. Daniel Noble – I try to steer the group towards cool ideas, but often find they end up taking them in even cooler directions! You can check out more about my research interests here
Postdoctoral Fellows
Dr. Patrice Pottier (2024- ) I’m an evolutionary ecologist exploring how rapid environmental change shapes the physiology, life-history, and behaviour of ectothermic animals. My interests are broad, and I use a combination of evidence synthesis, comparative analyses, and laboratory experiments to address exciting questions in a broad range of organisms.
PhD Students
I’m currently looking for PhD students to start in 2025! If you’re interested please get in touch with me.
Naomi Laven – (2023 – Present) I’ve moved to Canberra after an undergrad, honours and lots of field assistant work in the Australian tropics. My research here at ANU will focus on the implications of sex-reversal in a local alpine skink species, including looking at the ways sexual phenotypes or genotypes might impact behaviour, cognition, and mating traits. Understanding how sex-reversal impacts fitness is vital for predicting the future directions of populations prone to this phenomenon
Pablo Recio – (2022 – Present) My research focuses mainly on the evolution of animal behaviour, using reptiles as a model species. During my PhD I aim to unravel how maternal condition together with early environment affect cognitive abilities of the delicate skink. I am highly skilled at catching lizards with a fishing rod. You can find out more about my research here.
Dalton C. Leibold – (2022 – Present) Evolutionary ecologist by passion, physiologist by profession. I use reptiles as a system for identifying relationships between the environment, physiological processes, and fitness and all of its associated phenotypes. During my PhD I aim testing the programmatic effects of early-life experiences (i.e., maternal effects and the developmental environment) on physiological biomarkers of fitness (mitochondrial function, oxidative stress, and DNA damage), life-history tradeoffs, and lifetime reproductive success.
MSc Students
If you’re interested in a MSc we have lots of projects on the go, please get in touch with me.
Xingyi Liu (2024-2025) – My research focuses mainly on the effects of micro- and nano-plastics (MNPs) on aquatic animals. I am quantifying the extent to which MNPs affect the life history traits of aquatic animals and identifying what biological and methodological factors drive the heterogeneity of the effects of MNPs.
Undergraduate / Honours Students
If you’re interested in a Honours we have lots of projects on the go, please get in touch with me.
Lab Alumni
Postdocs
Dr. Ondi Crino – (2021 – 2022) Ondi was a postdoctoral researcher working on early environmental effects on physiology and is now running her own lab at Flinder’s University!
Kris Wild (2022-2023) – Kris is now doing a postdoctoral fellowship with Mike Kearney at the University of Melbourne.
Dr. Essie Rodgers (2019–2020) – Ecophysiology and Conservation Physiology of all things big (crocodiles to be exact) and small (lizards, fish and insects!). Now runs her own physiology lab at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand!!
Dr. Julia Riley – (2018) – University of New South Wales – Julia did a short postdoc stint with Lisa Schwanz and I at UNSW as an Endeavour Fellow. She then landed a South African postdoc, followed by a prestigious NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship before landing a job at Mount Allison University in Canada!
PhD
Fonti Kar – 2016 – 2021 – University of New South Wales – Co-advised with Prof. Shinichi Nakagawa – Phenotypic plasticity and pace-of-life in a widespread lizard, Lampropholis delicata. Fonti is now a postdoc at the University of New South Wales.
Birgit Szabo – PhD 2016 – 2019 – Macquarie University – Co-advised with Dr. Martin Whiting – Comparative cognition accross in lizards with diverse social structure. Birgit is now a postdoc at the University of Bern, Switzerland.
Kirke Munch – PhD 2014- 2018- University of Tasmania – Co-advised with Dr. Geoff While – Sociality, personality and learning in a family living lizard, Egernia whitii. Kirk is now working as a Grants Review Officer at the University of Tasmania.
MSc
Ophia Zhang (2019–2021) ANU – Co-advised with Dr. Megan Head. Ophia also did a short-term Research Assistant stint in the lab.
Xuechen Liu (2022) ANU – Co-advised with Prof. Sasha Mikheyev.
Honours
Eoin Noble (2019) – Hons – Australian National University
Emily Rayner (2017) – Hons 2017 – University of New South Wales
Kyleen Lopez – Hons 2017 – University of New South Wales
Fonti Kar – MSc 2015 – Macquarie University – Co-advised with A/Prof. Martin Whiting
Kerrie Wechmann – Hons 2012 – Macquarie University – Co-advised with A/Prof. Martin Whiting
Ben Clark – Hons 2012 – Macquarie University – Co-advised with A/Prof. Martin Whiting