Lab Members

The Greenwold Lab

Dr. Matt Greenwold

Dr. Greenwold grew up in Lexington, South Carolina. As a lifelong Gamecock fan, he was honored to attend The University of South Carolina where he completed his B.S and Ph.D. degrees. He was fortunate to be advised by an amazing professor, Dr. Roger Sawyer, during his graduate degree. As a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher, he was advised by several other great USC faculty including Dr. Jeff Dudycha, Dr. Joe Quattro, and Dr. Tammi Richardson.

He joined The University of Texas at Tyler in January 2020 and was immediately greeted by COVID-19 and told to stay home! Since joining UT Tyler, he has formed collaborations with Jess Coleman, Jared Dickson, Dr. Katrin Kellner, Dr. Jon Seal, Dr. Ryan Shartau, Dr. Lance Williams, and Marsha Williams. These collaborations have resulted in funding from Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, NSF, Texas Comptroller, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the USDA.

Dr. Greenwold regularly teaches graduate and undergraduate bioinformatics courses as well as an undergraduate genomics course. He is currently developing an upper-level undergraduate statistics course that will use the R programming language.

Current Students

Zoe Williams

Graduate Student

Zoe is studying the avian migratory patterns before and after the 2021 Texan blizzard using iBird data.

B.S. - UT Tyler

Amanda Odom

Graduate Student

"I am interested in ecology, conservation, and bioinformatics in studying avian species. My current research focuses on the fecundity, recruitment, and survivability of local secondary cavity nesters through the monitoring of artificial nest boxes on the UT Tyler campus. I am also examining the nest defense behaviors of breeding Eastern Bluebirds."

B.S. - UT Tyler

McKenzie Adkins

Graduate Student

I am currently pursuing my master's degree in biology, and I am researching two crayfish species in East Texas. The goal of this research is complete life history background on both species. I intend on doing field research after my masters in the future. 

B.S. - UT Tyler

Matthew Blow

Graduate Student

I am mainly interested in field ecology and the genetics of wetland and freshwater communities. Specifically, I am interested in eDNA techniques to track various species in freshwater and tidal environments. My focus while at the University of Texas at Tyler will be on developing an eDNA assay for detecting two SGCN crayfish species. I hope that my time at UT Tyler will allow me to broaden my knowledge of eDNA techniques so that I can apply what I learn to a career doing eDNA analyses for any agency interested in field ecology and genetics

Ciara Maroney

Graduate Student


Recent Lab Alumni

Elexis Anderson

Graduate Student

Elexis is broadly interested in ornithology and ecology. 

B.S. - UT Tyler

M.S. 2024

James York

Graduate Student
"I'm interested in conservation ecology and after graduation I want to work for either a state or federal agency in this field." 

B.S. - UT Tyler 

M.S. 2024

Suzannah Bozarth

Undergraduate Student

Suzannah studies microbiome of Amystoma tirgrinum (Tiger Salamanders) and freshwater mussel gill morphology and food resource partitioning. 

She is currently graduate student at the University of South Carolina

Armando Sanchez

Undergraduate Student

Armando earned independent study credit studying the concentration of algae in natural and constructed wetlands.

B.S. Biology 2023

Rayan Khan

High school student 

Evaluated draft genomes of crayfish and modified a pipeline for protein phylogenomics (Summer 2023)

Jana Swimberghe

Undergraduate (Junior Researcher from Howest, BE)

Thesis: A Phylogenetic Study of the Teche (Faxonius hathawayi hathawayi) and Calcasieu (Faxonius hathawayi blacki) Crayfish and Their Hybrids

Marissa Netti

Graduate Student, 2022

Thesis: Niche Partitioning of Food Resources by Freshwater Mussels in Multispecies Mussel Bed in the Sabine River

Chastity D. Aguilar

Graduate Student, 2022

Thesis: Differential Expression of Photosynthetic Genes in Crytophyte Algae Hemiselmis cryptochromatica (CCMP 1181) 

Elizabeth Cagle 

Undergraduate research fellow in The University of Texas at Tyler LSAMP 2022 Summer Research Academy 

Prabhat Kattel

Undergraduate

Comparative genomics of algal plastid genome (UT Tyler Fall 2020-Spring 2022)