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