Title: Hoke Lab REU Summer Research Opportunity
Compensation: $12.50/hr
Number of positions: 3
40 hrs/week
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Eligibility: Current undergraduate students who are  citizens or permanent residents of the United States or its possessions; sophomore standing or higher preferred

The Hoke Lab is seeking motivated, outstanding undergraduates interested in the study of animal behavior, neuroscience, skull structure, and evolution to conduct research over the summer via NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). The primary goal of the Hoke lab is to understand the processes that shape evolutionary trajectories. We focus on the mechanisms of convergent evolution of behavioral and morphological traits. More information about the Hoke Lab can be found at   http://hokelab.weebly.com.

Student will complete independent research projects, as well as working together as a team to contribute to large-scale experiments. REU students will formulate a project to explore the evolution and development of anurans, particularly the middle ear structures. Students will develop a wide variety of skills that may include tasks such as microscopy and microCT scan analysis under the guidance of senior lab members. There may be opportunities for field work as well. Pay is $12.50/hr, and students will be expected to work full time (40hrs/week for 10 weeks).

If interested, please send a CV and a brief (one paragraph) statement of interest to Leorah McGinnis (leorah.mcginnis@colostate.edu) by March 1st, 2019. Please include a description of any previous lab or field experience.

We've sent Rachel off to Ecuador for six weeks to get the lay of the land.  This is her first time going abroad and we're excited to hear all about her experience. While she's there she will be connecting with Dr. Guayasamin  and other Ecuadorian research colleagues,  investigating frog mating behavior by doing field work in the Amazon and  visiting the   University San Francisco de Quito (USFQ). She's hoping to find methods for making 3D models of individual frog movement over the course of a few weeks, and to see how we may be able to visually keep track of where we find the frogs.
Read all about her first week in her own words here:
amphibiousrach.wordpress.com/2019/01/23/first-week-in-ecuador/

The Hoke lab rang in 2019 by sending Kim Hoke and Laura to the 2019 Annual Meeting for the Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology (SICB) in Tampa, Florida.  Laura gave a well-received talk in the Monday morning Neuroethology session entitled "Sex on the brain: Effects of reproduction on brain and behavior in Trinidadian guppies."  On Saturday morning Kim co-chaired a session for  the DEDB Best Student Paper. Lab alum, Molly Womack, also presented a poster on Saturday entitled "Signatures of Relaxed Selection Characterize Earless Toad Lineages."  A lovely time was had by all as we start off the new year with great research and great friends!
​You can check out #SICB2019 on Twitter to see more highlights from the weekend.

Laura offered our undergraduate students a chance to learn R this semester in a free, voluntary workshop that she designed and implemented. The group met once a week for most of the semester and started out by simply learning how to assign a value to an object. Now they are analyzing and graphing their own data and they presented their work to the lab yesterday. The group included several previous REU students  who worked with data from their independent projects and now have even more ideas for future projects.  Laura hopes to put together a compilation of her teaching materials from this semester for us, but this is another option for learning R from the CSU Library  for those who may feel inspired after seeing this group's success!

The Hoke Lab has been thinking about creativity recently. Leorah led us in a mini-workshop for lab meeting about discovering our creative types, modified from a professional development class she took through CSU's Office of Training and Organizational Development. Some of us wrote haikus about our work afterward to flex our creative muscles and practice science communication!

Kim Dolphin and Miles both presented posters as part of the CSU  Graduate Student Showcase.   We are very proud of their posters and work!

This semester, our lab group, formerly known as HAGFish, expanded to include a new member - Dr. Kristen Ruegg. Our new group acronym is "G-RHAF" (pronounced like "giraffe") for Primary Investigators Ghalambor, Ruegg, Hoke, Angeloni, and Funk . At the end of  September in our monthly G-RHAF  lab group meeting, Leorah led a discussion of the CSU Principles of Community and Kim Dolphin led  an activity for creating community standards or group norms, from which this document was synthesized. It's a way for us to maintain clarity about our needs and expectations as our lab group grows. One of the  benefits of working with such a large group of great scientists is the many opportunities for collaboration, but working in such close proximity and sharing space and equipment also means it's important for us to  know how to interact positively and respectfully. This document allows us to explicitly state the values of our group and the expectations that we agree to uphold.