Lab Personnel


Andrade_as_Latrodectustexanus

 

Maydianne Andrade
Principal Investigator

BSc SFU, MSc U Toronto, PhD Cornell
E-mail: mandrade@utsc.utoronto.ca
ORCID Professional Profile: 0000-0002-2931-5378CV Sept. 2016

Lab Management

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Undergraduate Researchers

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Lab Assistants


lab management anchor

  Lab Management

 

Dr. Luciana Baruffaldi
(PhD 2015)

Lab Director

Dr. Baruffaldi is our Lab Director, in charge of overseeing all lab operations and research. She will use her vast knowledge of large-scale invertebrate rearing and her management skills to ensure equitable balancing of research needs, population maintenance, and personnel development and morale, all of which are essential to the ongoing success of the lab. Luciana also provides advice on experimental design for new projects. Overall then, Luciana is responsible for all high-level management of lab rearing operations and reports directly to Maydianne.

Lab assistants

Current Assistants

Archives: Past Assistants

Undergraduate Lab Assistants: 2021/2022

     Jeshan Sivakumar

          Minha Altaf

         Zachery Chan

 Susheen Mahmood

 Shanuga Thavarajah

      Krishan Singh

Ashley Cheung

       Libertad Rojas

  Shaun Sebastian

   Gleny Guzman

Archive

 The Archives…Past assistants:

  Archive: Undergraduate Researchers & Research Assistants (2015-2017)

Vighnesh Sukhu

Vighnesh Sukhu

Vighnesh was in the lab for a year, starting as a research assistant. He completed a one-term research course (BIOD95) in summer 2017, examining development and performance in widow spiders, and  in the fall 2017, engaged in a continuation of this project, in a collaborative effort with Yousef and Laini, led by Luciana.

Laini

Laini Taylor

Laini has been in the lab for over three years, she started as a lab assistant, then acted as a research assistant to PhD student Catherine Scott (working with one of three L. hesperus populations).  Last year, Laini completed a full-year independent research project, BIOD98, examining how sperm load of male Phidippus clarus jumping spiders is related to morphological traits, and performance. She presented her work in an outstanding talk at the Animal Behavior meeting, held summer 2017 at UTSC. Although Laini has now graduated, she continues to do research in the lab (collaboration with Yousef and Vighnesh, led by Luciana).

Alexandra Dorison

Alexandra Dorison

Alexandra has been in the lab for 3 years. She completed a BioB98 project, ‘shadowing’ PhD student Monica Mowery, during which she learned how female redback spiders show repeateable behaviours. Over the past 1.5 years, she completed a major research project with Monica , examining how cool temperatures affect spider development and behaviour in invasive and native populations. She presented her work in a poster at the Animal behaviour Conference in 2017 and was awarded an honourable mention in the student poster competition.  Congrats Alexandra! Alexandra has now graduated and will be heading to graduate school in the Fall.

Justin Andrew

Justin Andrew

Research Assistant

Justin has been in the lab for over two years, first as a lab assistant, then completing a BIOB98 ‘research shadowing’ course with Monica.  For the past 1.5 years he has been acting as a research assistant for Monica and Nishant. His help in acquiring life history data, running behavioural assays  and making phenotypic measures of spiders has been invaluable.

  Archive: Lab Manager and Undergraduate Lab Assistants (2020-2021)

Ariela Kong

             Ariela Kong

Former Lab Manager

Ariela was in the lab for four years. She started as a lab assistant for a year prior to starting as lab manager. Her excellent skills at the bench, strong work-ethic, excellent eye for spiders identification and rearing, as well as her impressive management skills were the key to built a strong, cohesive team among the lab assistants. In addition, her help the past year, ensuring that our research was viable even during the pandemic, was crucial. Ariela resigned as lab manager to pursue other experiences. We will miss her in the lab!

Jeshan Sivakumar

Fannie Yiu

Denzel Lodge

Isabella Wong

Krishan Singh

Alexander Levesque

Roinza Sawh

Jeshan Sivakumar

Amira Namasivayam

Amira Namasivayam

Abynanth Mathanaraj
Kapilan Srieskandarajah
Lauren Miller
Nina Adamo
Zual Mohmand
Lab Assistant Volunteers

Naomi Akanmori

 Hossain Anayet

Jose Arriola

 Katherine Datuin
 Aminah Khan

Florence Kwan

 Jady Liang

Sharanja Premachandran

Anupriya Singh

Nanziba Tasneem

Undergraduate Lab Assistants: 2017 Fall / 2018 Spring

 

Yousef Safar

Yousef Safar

Former Lab Manager

Yousef was in the lab for three years. He started as a volunteer assistant and quickly distinguished himself through his excellent ‘hands’, outstanding work ethic, and excellent eye for collecting spiders in the field. He helped with local field research, completed research projects with Luciana and, along with undergraduate collaborators (Laini and Vighnesh) complete an ambitious project on fitness effects of plasticity in a Japanese population of redback spiders (L. hasselti). He has presented his research at local and international conferences. Yousef has resigned as lab manager to pursue other experiences more aligned with his ultimate career goals. We wish him well, but will miss him in the lab!

Shabitha Arumugarajah

Aneesah Bari

Emmanuel Chan

Emmanuel Chan

Ravin Dyal

Ajay David

Ajay David

Mariaelena Guarrasi

Ariela Kong

Ariela Kong

Christopher Mahler

Anamaria Mihai

Mashiat Mimosa

Mashiat Mimosa

 Azeezah Jaffry

Azeezah Jaffry

Rabea Nadeem

Rabea Nadeem

Mahak Rajawat

Mahak Rajawat

Allison Rupnaraine

Allison Rupnaraine

Vishal Sharma

Vishal Sharma

Amira Namasivayam

Amira Namasivayam

Mecheala Pienczykowski

High School Co-Op Students

 Rayyan Wehbe

Rayyan Wehbe

Tiffany Kazakis

Tiffany Kazakis

Priya Thomas

Priya Thomas

Sakeenah Sulaiman

Sakeenah Sulaiman

Undergraduate Lab Assistants: 2017 Summer

Amira Abozaid

Ridda Ahmed

 

Shabitha Arumugarajah

Aneesah Bari

Aneesah Bari

Mecheala Pienczykowski

Sharunan Ragunathan

Emmanuel Chan

Emmanuel Chan

Abel Delbalkew

Abel Delbalkew

Ravin Dyal

Ravin Dyal

Mariaelena Guarrasi

Vishal Sharma

Mahak Rajawat

Lynn Bui

Azeezah Jafry

Christopher Mahler

Ishara Mudiyansela

Heba Saleh

allison-rupnaraine

Allison Rupnarain

High School Volunteer

 

Noor Hussain

Noor Hussain