I have mentored several graduate and undergraduate students on various research projects over the past few years. The main focus of my contribution to such projects includes:
I am currently a mentor and contributor to several projects led by students in the Clarke Lab, as well as a collaborator on projects at other institutions. If you want to know more about our current projects and opportunities for students, please email me!
- Research design, hypothesis testing, workflows for research protocols
- Data collection, analysis, and visualization
- Scientific writing for theses and peer-reviewed journal articles
- Conference presentations (public speaking and use of visual support)
I am currently a mentor and contributor to several projects led by students in the Clarke Lab, as well as a collaborator on projects at other institutions. If you want to know more about our current projects and opportunities for students, please email me!
List of research projects I have mentored led by Graduate (*) and Undergraduate (**) students:
|
|
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU)
Genome Size Evolution: Integrating fossil and extant data
In the summer of 2019, I was a mentor and instructor in a multidisciplinary REU co-hosted by Prof. Julia Clarke (The University of Texas at Austin) and Prof. Scott Edwards (Harvard University). The project was focused on establishing a correlation between genome size and cell size in dinosaurs including birds, with the goal of being able to predict genome size in non-avian dinosaurs. This correlation had been well-established in the literature, but not well-described in specific avian clades. While the Edwards Lab was focusing on collecting and analyzing molecular data for the genomics side of the project, a team of five undergraduate students in the Clarke Lab was measuring and analyzing data from osteohistological thin sections that I had photographed or obtained images of from my collaborators. This team was led by me and Dr. Nick Crouch.
As the main in-lab expert on bone histology and evolution of dinosaur metabolism, I assembled and formatted the main dataset and bibliography with my students. In addition, I designed and gave lectures on bone histology, vertebrate metabolism, and genome size evolution. For two months, I was in charge of supervising data collection and workshops on data crunching, use of ImageJ, and phylogenetic comparative methods in R, as well as leading weekly discussions between the UT Austin and Harvard teams. Each student was able to design their own individual project with me while contributing to a group effort that integrated all these projects in a global plan informed by our phylogenetic framework. After completion of the project, the whole Austin team went to Harvard to present and discuss our results with the Edwards Lab.
As an early-career mentor who had just started working at an American university, this experience was incredibly beneficial to me. The students in our group all did a great job for their first research experience, and several of them later chose to pursue biological research and/or data analysis as a career goal: two students completed their Honors theses in the Clarke Lab, another went on to do a PhD in ecology at Colorado State University, and the remaining two started a career in industry, including one in data analysis that was informed by the use of R in the REU program.
Feel free to contact me for inquiries, collaborations, ideas, proposals, etc.
|
Dr. Lucas Legendre
Research Associate Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences The University of Texas at Austin 2305 Speedway Stop C1160 Austin, TX 78712, United States [email protected] All pictures on this website belong to me, unless mentioned otherwise. |