About
We're a motley crew that share a love for science, nature and having fun!
Jason L. Brown
Primary Investigator
​BreAnn Geralds, MSc
Doctoral Student
SIU Doctoral Fellow
As a youth, he explored the outdoors of rural South Dakota developing his love for amphibians and nature. He fostered these interests by majoring in biology at Moorhead State University Minnesota and then took the academic road, getting his Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Biology from East Carolina University in 2009.
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Since 2003, Jason spent over 33 months in the tropics studying and observing amphibians, traveling much of Central and South America and Madagascar. One of Jason's oldest research interests is on the behavioral ecology, phylogeography, and taxonomy of Neotropical poison frogs. His interests in poison frogs existed before his academic career, and continue to deepen with his growing knowledge of their seemingly endless phenotypic variation and complex mating, parental care and social behaviors. Today Jason studies a broad array of things, most of his research focuses on temporal and spatial variation in habitats and how they influence the generation and maintenance of biodiversity.
Likes: ​Traveling, hiking, canoeing, backpacking, camping, racquetball, folk and bluegrass music, genealogies, smoked and cured meats, cheese, beer, scotch, fossil hunting, woodworking, strategy board games, pinball, retro video games, football, terrariums, aquariums, container gardens
Sofía Granados-Martínez, Masters Student
SIU Master's Fellow
Sofy is a master's student from Costa Rica, currently studying the phylogeography of widespread poison frog species across the Amazon basin. Her research focuses on understanding the distribution and evolutionary patterns of three diverse poison frog species. Sofy completed her Licenciatura degree in Zoology at the University of Costa Rica where she worked with Dr. Fernando Soley-Guarda studying visual navigation of the strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio) in their natural tropical forest environment. In her spare time, Sofy loves to explore nature and hike. She also loves good coffee, yoga, board games, reading books and watch the stars in the night sky.
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BreAnn is broadly interested in research regarding dendrobatid life histories, including how behavior, genetic, and environmental factors lead to speciation events. She is an alumnus of SIU after attaining her undergraduate degree in zoology with a focus on herpetology and conservation. She then obtained her master’s degree from East Carolina University working with Dr. Kyle Summers identifying differentially expressed genes in the brains of begging Ranitomeya imitator and Ranitomeya variabilis tadpoles to pinpoint the mechanisms underlying the evolution of begging behavior and parent-offspring interactions. Her love of dendrobatids and her master’s lab brought her back to SIU to work with Dr. Jason Brown investigating speciation mechanisms in Ameerega poison frogs.
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When not obsessing over frogs, BreAnn loves hiking or anything outdoors, crafting just about everything, playing DnD, reading, writing, pinning insects, watching football, and caring for her mini zoo of herps.
Jasmine Weber-Pierson, MSc
Doctoral Student
Jasmine is a doctoral student at SIU that is currently starting a project studying the driving factors of the changing distributions of three different species of geese in west-central and southern Illinois with Dr. Jason Brown and Dr. Michael Eichholz. She completed her master's degree in Sweden at Linnaeus University with advisors Dr. Mariëlle van Toor and Dr. Jonas Waldenström where she created a project in which she investigated how the use of the agricultural landscape and potential exposure to agricultural pollutants at a stopover location in Sweden affected the immune system health in mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). In her spare time, she spends most of her time hanging out with her two bunnies, Kiwi and Belle, or going for walks or hikes in nature. She also loves cooking and trying out new recipes.
Jake Hutton, MSc
Doctoral Student
Amphibians represent one of the most endangered groups of vertebrates, with conservative estimates suggesting 33% of all species are at risk of extinction. Researchers have shown that climate change will be extremely challenging for ectothermic animals, such as amphibians, because of increased environmental temperatures. As amphibian populations continue to decline globally, the need for greater understanding of conservative physiological research tools rapidly increases. Specifically, if or how amphibians can cope with novel or chronic temperature pressures is a critical question considering the magnitude and rapid pace of global climate change.
In addition to examining physiological responses of amphibians to climate, I will also be monitoring the influence of temporal water regimes and weather patterns on amphibian breeding phenology, distribution, abundance, and community structure in the Buttonland Swamp of the Lower Cache River Valley in Southern Illinois.
Leandro JCL Moraes, MSc
Visting Doctoral Student
from USP, Brazil
Robert Wray
Undergraduate Researcher
Tadpole Ninja
Robert is an undergrad zoology student who hopes to get his PhD in animal behavior and behavioral ecology. Robert is interested in mating behaviors, mutualistic relationships (and why some animals are more willing to work with members of another species than others) animal intelligence, and changes that may lead to speciation (such as the sea wolves of British Columbia)
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Likes/hobbies include: reading (especially fantasy novels), writing, playing D&D and board/card games, mythology, rum, learning interesting/little-known facts about any subject, and animals of all kinds.
Eli Honn
Undergraduate Researcher
Animal Caretaker &
Poison Frog Couples Therapist
Eli is a sophomore zoology major. Their research interests include animal behavior and conservation. They love working with animals......
Leandro Moraes is a visiting postdoctoral researcher cosplaying as a doctoral student from the Universidade de São Paulo working with Drs. Antoine Fouquet, Miguel T. Rodrigues and Fernanda Werneck. Leandro is visiting the Brown Lab for a year (6/2024-6/2025). Leandro's research is incredibly ambitious and focuses on the spatial patterns of mitogenomic diversity of almost all Amazonian anurans. Based on these results, Leandro will elucidate the mechanisms of biodiversity genesis across the Amazon and characterize the biogeographic regions of the Amazon basin.
