Present Members
Fletcher Halliday is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University. He is broadly interested in understanding patterns of parasite diversity and abundance in a changing world. His work focuses on the community ecology of infectious diseases, plant community ecology, and species invasions in a variety of systems.
Nicolas Zurbuchen is a PhD student in the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Zürich. He is interested in plant biodiversity; inter- and intraspecific trait variation; and host responses to pathogens, herbivores, and drought using plants from a 1100-meter elevational gradient in Southeastern Switzerland.
Isabelle Stiver is a PhD student in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University. She is interested in microbial facilitation of disease and will be working with the host plant, Dactylis glomerata in its native range (Switzerland), and its introduced range (Oregon), as well as in agricultural production areas where it is grown for seed and forage.
Nichole Laggan is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology at Oregon State University. Her current interests lie in understanding how within-host interactions and abiotic factors influence host competence and patterns of disease. Her previous research questions have centered around pathogen invasions, with an emphasis on reservoir dynamics, host community response, and pathogen virulence evolution following introduction events.
Past Members
Aram Kübler is completed her MSc student in Biology at the University of Zürich in 2024. She studied how biodiversity influences disease risk, and how that relationship is altered by the presence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Her project used plant mesocosms in the greenhouse and the focal pathogen Rhizoctonia solani which causes damping-off disease.