Current Personnel

Directors of the Schatz Center

• Jill Hamilton, University Park

Faculty Members

• Kim Steiner, Professor Emeritus of Forest Biology
• Laura Leites, Associate Professor of Quantitative Forest Ecology
• Jesse Lasky, Associate Professor of Biology
• John Carlson, Past Director, Professor Emeritus of Molecular Genetics, University Park

Lab Manager

• Alexander Moen

Research Technologist

• Austin Parr

Graduate Students

• Michelle Zavala Paez, Ecology Program, PhD Candidate

• Kyra LoPiccolo, Plant Biology Program, PhD Candidate

• Diego del Orbe Matos, Plant Biology Program, PhD Student

• Muqing Liu, Ecology Program, PhD Student (Incoming Fall 2025)

Post Doctoral Scholars

• Dr. Alayna Mead, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow

• Dr. Sammy Muraguri

Undergraduate Students

• Lucia Anderson

• Jacob Mazza

• Kingston Gearheart

Schatz Visiting Scholars, 2019-2021

• Dr. Dorothy Tchapda Tchatchoua, Fulbright Scholar, Department of Agriculture, University of Maroua, Cameroon
• Dr. Catherine Bodénès, the National Institute for Agricultural Research, Bordeaux, France
• Dr. Rita Costa, the Portuguese National Institute for Agricultural and Veterinary Research in Portugal
• Dr. Margaret Staton, Associate Professor of bioinformatics, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN