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Early Bird was a collaboration involving seven principal investigators from five institutions: Field Museum of Natural History, University of Florida (located in both the Department of Biology and the Florida Museum of Natural History), National Museum of Natural History, Louisiana State University, and Wayne State University. This project has trained more than 35 different scientists, including high school students, undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers. Seventy percent of Early Bird trainees have been women.

Members of the Early Bird collaboration have continued this work since the support from the National Science Foundation ended, and we anticipate that this project will continue to have an impact on our understanding of avian evolution.

Post-docs | Graduate Students | Undergraduates | Technicians


Principal Investigators

Edward Braun, University of Florida
email: ebraun68[at]ufl.edu

Michael Braun, Smithsonian Institution
email: braunm[at]si.edu

Shannon Hackett, Field Museum of Natural History
email: shackett[at]fieldmuseum.org

Rebecca Kimball, University of Florida
email: rkimball[at]ufl.edu

William Moore, Wayne State University
email: wmoore1415[at]gmail.com

David Steadman, Florida Museum of Natural History
email: dws[at]flmnh.ufl.edu

Frederick Sheldon, Louisiana State University
email: fsheld[at]lsu.edu

Post-docs

Rauri Bowie, Field Museum of Natural History
Current position: Assistant Professor, University of California, Berkeley
email: bowie[at]berkeley.edu

John Harshman, Field Museum of Natural History
email: jharshman[at]pacbell.net

Kathleen Miglia, Wayne State University
Current position: Post-doc, Duke University
email: kathleen.miglia[at]duke.edu

Sushma Reddy, Field Museum of Natural History
Current position: Assistant Professor, Loyola University Chicago
email: sreddy6[at]luc.edu

Tamaki Yuri, National Museum of Natural History and University of Florida
Current Position: Collections Manager, Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural HIstory
email: tyuri[at]ou.edu

Graduate Students 

Jena Chojnowski, University of Florida
Current position: Post-doc, University of Georgia
email: kixs4[at]ufl.edu

Kin-Lan Han, University of Florida
email: hankin[at]ufl.edu

Naomi Iuhasz-Velez, University of Florida
Current position: Ph.D. student, Univesity of Miami

Ben Marks, Louisiana State University
Current position: Curator of Birds and Mammals, Texas A&M University
email: bdmarks[at]tamu.edu

Jordan Smith, University of Florida
email: jordansmith[at]mac.com

Ning Wang, Beijing Normal University (exchange with University of Florida)
Current position: Associate Professor, Hainan Normal University

Christopher Witt, Louisiana State University
Current position: Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico
email: cwitt[at]unm.edu

Selected Undergraduates

Many undergraduates participated in the Early Bird project. Below we highlight a few students that made especially large contributions to the project.

Amber Bonilla, University of Florida
Current position: Graduate Student, Dartmouth College

Andrew Cox, University of Florida
Current position: Graduate Student, University of Missouri

Victoria Heimer-Torres, University of Florida
Current position: Graduate Student, University College Cork, Ireland

Sarah Hunter-Smith, Field Museum of Natural History

Naomi Iuhasz-Velez, University of Florida
Also completed Master’s Degree in Mathematics at the University of Florida

Jordan Smith, University of Florida
Also completed Master’s Degree in Biology at the University of Florida

Technicians 

Chris Huddleston, Smithsonian Institution
email: huddlestonc[at]si.edu

Erin Sackett-Hermann, Field Museum of Natural History
email: esacketthermann[at]fieldmuseum.org