2016

Corrie Moreau (PI) appears as a guest on the This Week in Evolution (TWiEVO) podcast – November 2016

Benjamin Blanchard (graduate student) wins second place for “Graduate Student Oral Competition: Morphology, Systematic, and Phylogeny: Hymenoptera” at the International Congress of Entomology – September 2016

Benjamin Rubin (former graduate student) and Corrie Moreau (PI) publish a paper titled “Comparative genomics reveals convergent rates of evolution in ant-plant mutualisms” in Nature Communications – August 2016

Lu Yao (graduate student) earns her Ph.D. and will soon leave the lab to start a postdoc at the American Museum of Natural History – June 2016

Lu Yao (graduate student) receives Honorable Mention for Exemplary Student Research at the American Association of Physical Anthropologists for her talk titled “Using ancient DNA for phylogenetic correction to interpret island dwarfing in Macaca fascicularis” – April 2016

Supriya (graduate student) is awarded a Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future Fellowship – April 2016

Corrie Moreau (PI) is selected as a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for 2016 – March 2016 –  Watch Video

Peter Flynn (incoming graduate student) is awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP) grant – March 2016

Lu Yao (graduate student) is awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Museum of Natural History to begin fall of 2016 – March 2016

Supriya (graduate student) is awarded a Field Museum Women In Science Graduate Fellowship for one year of stipend and research support – March 2016

Benjamin Blanchard (graduate student) is awarded a NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for U.S. Graduate Students (EAPSI) grant to conduct fieldwork in China for the summer – March 2016

Corrie Moreau (PI) is interviewed for the “Science for the People” podcast series – February 2016

Andrew Burchill (former undergraduate intern – now Ph.D. student at Arizona State University) and Corrie Moreau (PI) publish the results of Andrew’s senior thesis research titled “Colony size evolution in ants: Macroevolutionary trends” in Insectes Sociaux. – January 2016

Corrie Moreau (PI) and Thorsten Lumbsch (co-PI) were awarded a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduate (REU) site grant. – January 2016

2015

Max Winston (graduate student) is awarded second place in the President’s Award student competition at the annual Entomological Society of America for his talk titled “Repeated invasions of Central America drive speciation in a clade of top Neotropical predators”. – November 2015

Ben Rubin (graduate student) earns his Ph.D. and will soon leave the lab to start a postdoc at Princeton University. – June 2015

Corrie Moreau (PI) participated in two videos about her research for the scientific YouTube channel The Brain Scoop watched by tens of thousands of viewers | Watch Dissecting Ants| and | Watch Bullet Ant Venom | – June 2015

Undergraduate intern, Timothy Salazar, was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to spend a year at the Instituto de la Patagonia at the Universidad de Magallanes in Punta Arenas, Chile. – April 2015

Max Winston (graduate student) was awarded a NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (DDIG). – February 2015

Manuela Ramalho (Ph.D. student UNESP – Rio Claro, Brazil & CAPES Fellow) arrives to spend one year working in the Moreau Lab on ant endosymbionts. – February 2015

Corrie Moreau (PI) and colleagues publish a paper titled “Evolutionary transitions of complex labile traits: Silk weaving and arboreal nesting in Polyrhachis ants” in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

2014

Corrie Moreau (PI) was featured on the “Before They Were Scientists” blog – December 2014

Gracen Brilmyer (former research assistant & now Master’s graduate student at U.C. Berkeley) was interviewed for the Windy City Times – Gay in the Life series about Gracen’s work in the lab – October 2014

Corrie Moreau (Lead PI), Jacob Russell (PI), Scott Powell (PI), and John Wertz (PI) were awarded a five-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Dimensions of Biodiversity (DoB) grant to pursue research related to the evolution and ecology of turtle ants and their gut microbiomes – August 2014

Corrie Moreau (PI), James Traniello (PI), and Wulfila Gronenberg (PI) were awarded a four-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to pursue research on ant brain evolution. – August 2014

Corrie Moreau (PI), Ben Rubin (graduate student), Max Winson (graduate student), and Gracen Brilmyer (research assistant) travel to the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI) in Cairns, Australia to present their research – July 2014

Undergraduate intern, Gabe Trujillo, was featured on Lake Forest College’s website for his internship and research in the Moreau lab – July 2014

Corrie Moreau (PI), Ben Rubin (graduate student), Max Winson (graduate student), Andrea Thompson (undergrad), Gabriel Trujillio (undergrad), and Dirk Mezger (postdoc) travel to the Evolution Meetings in Raleigh, NC to present their research – June 2014

Working with collaborators, Muscedere, Gronenberg, & Traniello, Corrie Moreau (PI) published a paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B on the evolution of brain size in social insects – June 2014

Max Winston (graduate student), Corrie Moreau (PI), and colleagues published a paper on the Cannabis microbiome in PLOS ONE – June 2014

Corrie Moreau (PI) is featured on The Brain Scoop for a video titled “Romantic Ants” – February 2013

Corrie Moreau (PI) is awarded a grant from the National Geographic Society to support research on the impact of historic climate change on ants and their associated bacteria in the Australian Wet Tropics. – January 2014

2013

Ben Rubin (graduate student), Max Winston (graduate student), and Corrie Moreau (PI) travel to the Entomological Society of America Meetings in Austin, Texas to present their research.  – November 2013

The Moreau Lab hosted the third annual Chicago Area Ant Lab Meeting.  Over 40 ant biologists from 16 institutions and 5 states came together to present research talks and share ideas on advancing ant science. | Press about the meeting | – November 2013

Stefanie Kautz (postdoc), Ben Rubin (graduate student), and Corrie Moreau (PI) publish a paper for an invited special issue of Psyche on “Ants and their parasites” titled “Bacterial infections across the ants: Frequency and prevalence of Wolbachia, Spiroplasma, and Asaia.” – July 2013

Ben Rubin (graduate student), Max Winston (graduate student), and Corrie Moreau (PI) travel to the Evolution Meetings in Snowbird, Utah to present their research.  – June 2013

Corrie Moreau (PI) and Charles Bell (University of New Orleans) publish a paper in Evolution testing the “museum” versus “cradle” tropical diversity hypotheses in ants and is featured on Nature (April 2013): http://www.nature.com/news/why-the-tropics-are-an-evolutionary-hotbed-1.12846

Ben Rubin (graduate student) was awarded a NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (DDIG). – March 2013

Corrie Moreau (PI), Brian Wray (research assistant), Jesse Czekanski-Moir (former lab member), and Ben Rubin (graduate student) publish a paper on insect preservatives for DNA and host-associated microbes in Invertebrate Systematics. – March 2013

Field Museum Women in Science (FMWIS) group is launched (http://fieldmuseum.org/explore/field-museum-women-science). – March 2013

Ben Rubin (graduate student) was awarded a one year Field Museum Brown Family Graduate Student Fellowship. – March 2013

Steffi Kautz (postdoc), Ben Rubin (graduate student), Jacob Russell (Drexel University), and Corrie Moreau (PI) published a paper in Applied and Environmental Microbiology titled “Surveying the microbiome of ants: Comparing 454 pyrosequencing with traditional methods to uncover bacterial diversity”. – January 2013

2012

Lead by Jacob Russell of Drexel University, Corrie Moreau recently co-authored a paper published in PLOS ONE titled “A veritable menagerie of heritable bacteria from ants, butterflies, and beyond: Broad molecular surveys and a systematic review”. – December 2012

Research assistant, Gracen Brilmyer, had a paper published in DNA Barcodes based on work she was involved with during her time at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. – December 2012

Steffi Kautz (postdoc) and Ben Rubin (graduate student) attended the Entomological Society of America meeting in Knoxville, TN and presented their research. – November 2012

The Moreau Lab hosted the second annual Chicago Area Joint Ant Lab Meeting.  Over 30 ant biologists from 10 institutions and 5 states came together to present research talks and share ideas on advancing ant science. – October 2012

Graduate student, Max Winston, and colleagues had a paper published in Ecological Entomology “Sodium-specific foraging by leafcutter ant workers” from research completed during a social insect OTS course in Costa Rica. – October 2012

Max Winston (graduate student) was awarded a one year U.S. Department of Education GAANN fellowship from the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. – August 2012

The lab visited Costa Rica (Área de Conservación Guanacaste – ACG) to conduct fieldwork for ant-microbe research.  – June 2012

Postdoc, Steffi Kautz, has a paper published “Host Plant Use by Competing Acacia-Ants: Mutualists Monopolize While Parasites Share Hosts” in PLOS ONE – May 2012

Corrie Moreau has finally joined the world of Twitter – May 2012.  Follow me: @CorrieMoreau

Graduate student, Ben Rubin, had a paper published “Inferring phylogenies from RAD sequence data” in PLOS ONE – April 2012

Undergraduate intern, Sara Zufan, recently graduated from DePaul University and was accepted to the highly competitive Chicago Teaching Fellows program for biology – March 2012.

Corrie Moreau attended the Genomic Standards Consortium (GSC13) meeting in Shenzhen, China and gave a talk “Exploring the host-associated microbiome of ant species” – March 2012

2011

The Moreau lab traveled to the Entomological Society of America meetings in Reno, NV.  Presentations were made by Max Winston (graduate student – poster), Ben Rubin (graduate student – talk), Tim O’Connor (former undergraduate – talk), Steffi Kautz (postdoctoral researcher – talk), and Corrie Moreau (PI – talk) – November 2011

Corrie Moreau gave an invited Keynote (Plenary) address at the Australasian Evolution Society meetings in Queensland, Australia – September 2011Max Winston, new Ph.D. graduate student, joins the lab – September 2011

Lynika Strozier, summer intern, was accepted to the competitive University of Chicago Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) – July 2011

Ben Rubin successively advanced to Ph.D. candidacy after presenting his proposed dissertation research to his thesis committee (Corrie Moreau, Richard Ree, Justin Borevitz, and Yoav Gilad) and a public audience as part of the University of Chicago’s Natural History Seminar series – May 2011

Jessica De Smet, post-undergrad intern in the lab, is accepted to a master’s degree program for the Fall of 2011 at the University of Oklahoma – May 2011

Tim O’Connor, former lab intern and research assistant, was recently announced as the winner of the 2011 William L. and Ruth D. Nutting Research Grant for termite research from NAS/IUSSI based on independent research Tim started in the Moreau lab – April 2011

Alexandra Westrich, research assistant, and Corrie Moreau are interviewed by American Scientist for the online and print magazine about their work with The Romance of Ants exhibit – April 2011

Steffi Kautz, postdoctoral research, and Daniel Ballhorn, research associate, become the proud parents of a new baby boy, Jasper – April 2011

Corrie Moreau and Dr. Jacob Russell (Drexel University) are awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) – DEB Population and Community Ecology Cluster grant.  Three years of funding was awarded to support “Inferring bacterial roles in the evolution of trophic level across the ants” – March 2011

A paper titled “Biogeography and morphological evolution in a Pacific island ant radiation” by Eli Sarnat (UIUC) and Corrie Moreau is published in Molecular Ecology – January 2011

Daniel Ballhorn, research associate, Steffi Kautz, postdoctoral researcher, and colleagues publish a paper in the Journal of Ecology titled “Genetic and environmental interactions determine plant defences against herbivores” – January 2011

In collaboration with colleagues at Drexel University and Harvard University, Corrie Moreau was a co-author on a recent publication in Applied and Environmental Microbiology titled “Army ants harbor host-specific clades of Entomoplasmatales bacteria” which also included the cover image – January 2011

2010

The Moreau lab traveled to the Entomological Society of America meetings in San Diego.  Presentations were made by Sara Zufan (NSF REU undergraduate – poster), Ben Rubin (graduate student – talk), Tim O’Connor (former undergraduate – talk), Steffi Kautz (postdoctoral researcher – talk), and Corrie Moreau (PI – talk) – December 2010

E.O. Wilson, one of Corrie Moreau’s graduate advisors, visited the Moreau Lab at the Field Museum – November 2010

Corrie Moreau is interviewed on Chicago’s Fox morning show about “The Romance of Ants” exhibit – September 2010

Steffi Kautz, postdoctoral researcher, and Corrie Moreau present talks at the IUSSI meetings in Copenhagen, Denmark – August 2010

“The Romance of Ants” public exhibit opens at the Field Museum – July 2010

Postdoctoral research, Steffi Kautz, and Corrie Moreau publish a meeting review of the EOL/GAP meeting held at the Field Museum in Myrmecological News online early – July 2010

Jesse Czekanski-Moir, research assistant, leaves the lab to begin graduate school at the University of Oklahoma – June 2010

Corrie Moreau presents a talk at the annual Evolution Meetings in Portland, Oregon – June 2010

As a former Miller Fellow, Corrie Moreau, was invited to attend the annual UC Berkeley Miller Symposium – June 2010

Postdoctoral researcher, Steffi Kautz, received a two-year postdoctoral fellowship from the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina to pursue research on bacteria in ants in the Moreau lab – April 2010

Graduate student, Ben Rubin, is awarded a three-year NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for his proposed work on acacia ants – April 2010

Postdoctoral researcher, Steffi Kautz, is awarded a one-year postdoctoral fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) – April 2010

Steffi Kautz, postdoctoral researcher, and colleagues publish a paper “Comparing responses of generalist and specialist herbivores to various cyanogenic plant features” in Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata – March 2010

Corrie Moreau was recently interviewed by Thomson Reuters for their ScienceWatch website feature focusing on a previously published article (Moreau et al. 2006 Science 312: 101–104) which Thomson Reuters considers “highly cited” – February 2010

Corrie Moreau was an invited speaker at the Symposium on Evolutionary Divergence Time at Rutgers University – January 2010

2009

Recent work by Jake Russell, Corrie Moreau and colleagues on the bacterial community of ants was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (PNAS) – December 2009

Benjamin Rubin, graduate student, and Corrie Moreau presented their research at the Entomological Society of America meetings in Indianapolis, Indiana – December 2009

The Moreau Lab and EOL BioSynthesis Center host the Global Ant Project meeting in Chicago, IL – November 2009