Christiane Weirauch Christiane joined the faculty in Entomology at UCR in early 2007 as a systematic entomologist. Her interest is in systematic research of Heteroptera, with an emphasis on Reduviidae and Miridae, on combining morphological and molecular data, and on integrating our systematic knowledge with the evolution of exciting character systems (such as glands), the evolution of prey capture strategies in Reduviidae, and biogeography.
Christiane received a “Diplom” in biology form Eberhard Karls Universitaet in Tuebingen (working on the assassin bug fauna of a small nature reserve in Southern Brazil) and obtained her PhD from Freie Universitaet Berlin studying systematics of Reduviidae. She then moved to the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and became a post doc in the PBI (Planetary Biodiversity Inventory) project on Plant Bugs, where she focused on systematics of the mirid subfamily Phylinae. Contact:
Lily Berniker Lily is an entomology graduate student at UCR and she joined the lab in fall 2008. She has recently started to aquaint herself with the world of the bee assassins, Reduviidae of the genus Apiomerus. She will monograph two species groups in this genus as part of her masters thesis research.
Wei Song Hwang Wei Song is an entomology graduate student at UCR and he joined the lab in fall 2007. He is currently involved in the Madagascar Reduviid Project as well as field survey of Triatominae in Southern California. His research interests are systematic entomology, taxonomy and evolutionary biology.
Wei Song received his BSc.(Hons) from National University of Singapore, majoring in Life Sciences (concentration in Biology) before joining the lab at UCR as a PhD graduate student.
Guanyang Zhang Guanyang is from China and is a graduate student. Prior joining to the Heteropteran Systematics Lab, he did his undegraduate studies in National University of Singapore and he still misses the humidity in the tropics. He is interested in species discovery, and is currently revising three genera of Peiratinae from Madagascar using both morphology and molecules.
Dimitri Forero Dimitri obtained his Ph.D. from the Entomology Department at Cornell University in 2008. He joined the Heteroptera Systematics Lab in late October 2008 as a Postdoctoral Researcher. He will be working on the taxonomic revison and phylogenetic systematics of the speciose assassin bug genus Apiomerus, the bee-killers. Contact:
Grace Radabaugh Grace is an undergraduate student in Entomology at UCR and currently heavily involved in resolving taxonomic problems in the Malagassy reduviid genus Ulpius. She studied the group during the summer, while working on a Dean's Fellowhsip, presented a poster at Graduate Student Seminar Day and is getting ready to present her research at the ESA meeting in Indianapolis.
Elizabeth Romero Elizabeth is a double major in Biology and Entomology and very busy preparing and databasing specimens in our lab.
Former Lab Members
Nageen Asadi Nageen worked for the bug lab during the summer 2009. She was mostly in charge of databasing collections of Triatominae from California.
Kyle Risser Kyle is an undergraduate student in Entomology at UCR, who started working for our lab in the summer 2007. He initially was involved in our Triatominae survey and did field work over the summer and now is taking care of our growing lab cultures of assassin bugs (species of Zelus, Apiomerus, Sinea, Macrocephalus). Kyle has also been involved in directed research for undergraduates in fall 2007 and winter 2007 and has looked into pretarsal structures of spider-web inhabiting Emesinae and the local fauna of Emesinae.
Diane Soto Diane is an undergraduate student in Entomology at UCR and she has joined our lab in spring 2007. Diane has worked on a systematic revision of group of Miridae from Australia (directed research project. spring 2007), learned molecular techniques while gathering preliminary data for a molecular phylogeny of the bee assassins of the genus Apiomerus (Reduviidae), and has gathered and organized pdfs for our digital library of Reduviidae.
James Munro James is a grad student in Entomology at UCR and was employed in our lab from spring to fall 2007. He helped to get the molecular lab started, produced a lot of reduviid sequences, and has been busy secondary structure aligning these and new data.
Donald Beasley Donald is a grad student in Entomology at UCR and he participated in our Triatominae survey during the summer 2007.
Aimee Shore Aimee worked for our lab during the summer 2007. She was responsible for taking care of our assassin bug cultures, i.e. species of the genera Zelus, Phymata, and Apiomerus. Aimee also databased localities and helped with literature search.
