Current Members
Click on name for further information.
Past Members
- Ian Anderson
- Ben Brugman
- Dr. Andres Cianca
- Brian Eddie
- Dr. Peer Helmke
- Gwendolyn Hoenicke
- Kate Meltzer
- Alexis Pasulka
- Philip Tarrant
Amy Hansen
Click here to E-mail
Amy Hansen
I joined the Neuer laboratory in the fall of 2008 as a Microbiology M.S. student. Previously, I earned a B.A. in Biology at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. My undergraduate thesis was on biofilm formation by Neisseria gonorrhoeae and was the product of research I performed at the University of Iowa in Dr. Michael Apicella’s lab. In my junior year of college, I studied abroad for a semester in Tanzania. There, I designed and carried out a research project on macroinvertebrate indicators of stream quality in the Mazumbai Forest Reserve in the Eastern Arc Mountains.
My research at ASU centers on the plankton community at the BATS site in the sub-tropical North Atlantic. Specifically, I use epifluorescence microscopy to investigate how seasonality impacts the structure of this community. I am also using a molecular biology technique called qPCR (Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction) to shed light on the eukaryotic picoplankton fraction of this community. Picoplankton play a key role in marine ecology, but their small size makes them nearly impossible to identify and enumerate through traditional microscopy.
I also work as a TA for the laboratory portion of Bio 187 – General Biology I.