About
We're a motley crew that share a love for science, nature and having fun!
Jason L. Brown
Primary Investigator
Jasmine Weber-Pierson, MSc
Doctoral Student
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
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.
Jocelyn Valero
Animal Caretaker &
Fruitfly Sensei
Leandro JCL Moraes, MSc
Co-advised Doctoral Student from USP, Brazil
Jocelyn is a sophomore zoology major. Her academic interests include animal behavior, zoological care, and conservation.
Leandro Moraes is collaborating with the Brown Lab on his research at the Universidade de São Paulo, working with Drs. Antoine Fouquet, Miguel T. Rodrigues and Fernanda Werneck. Leandro visited the Brown Lab for a year (6/2024-6/2025) to work on spatial biodiversity models. 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.
