RESEARCH
Meet the Team
Dr. Ken Jeffries (he/him)
Principal Investigator
BSc (First Class Honours) – University of Calgary
MSc – University of Calgary
PhD – University of British Columbia
Postdoc – University of California, Davis
Ken is broadly interested in understanding how environmental stressors affect aquatic animals. His fundamental research focuses on understanding how temperature affects aquatic ectotherms and whether we can determine sub-lethal thresholds in responses to temperature that can predict when temperatures begin to cause fitness-level consequences. He is also interested in quantifying how contaminants in the aquatic environment can affect ectotherms. Most of Ken’s research uses different transcriptomic approaches to understand how environmental stressors affect animals at the cellular level and then integrating those responses across different levels of biological organization.
Joined 2023
Dr. Analisa Lazaro-Côté (she/her)
Postdoctoral Researcher
PhD - University of Calgary
Analisa is a Mitacs postdoctoral fellow investigating how thermal stress affects fish physiology and performance. Her research centers on using transcriptional profiling to aid in the conservation of wild bull trout in Alberta and the Northwest Territories, Canada. This work is conducted in collaboration with GEN-FISH, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, and fRI Research. On a mechanistic level, she is examining the role of extracellular vesicles and their molecular cargo during thermal acclimation and stress.
Joined 2021
Hossein Haghighi (he/him)
PhD Candidate
MSc - University of Tehran
Hossein is a Ph.D. student studying the effects of thermal stress on freshwater fish. He uses molecular and cellular techniques to investigate short- and long-term effects of thermal stress on developing fish. He has been developing a universal OpenArray™ chip for Acipenser sturgeons to investigate the transcriptomic response of these species to acute thermal stress. He also studies the effects of chronic thermal stress on the development of brain and muscle in zebrafish.
Joined 2025
Andrea Chandler (she/her)
MSc Student
BSc – University of California, Santa Barbara
Andrea is a master’s student studying the effects of lampricides on non-target species in the Laurentian Great Lakes of North America. She is comparing the transcriptomic effects of lampricides across several fish species including lake sturgeon, bluegill, brown bullhead and rainbow trout. This research is conducted in collaboration with Mike Wilkie's Lab at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) and is funded by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
Joined 2026
Matthew Leppelmann (he/him)
MSc Student
Co-supervised by Dr. Vince Palace (IISD-ELA)
BSc- University of Winnipeg (Biology)
Matthew is a master's student investigating the effects of climate change and oil spills on lake trout and pearl dace through whole lake manipulations done at the IISD-Experimental Lakes Area. His research focuses on using mucus as a non-lethal and minimally invasive tool for transcriptomic analysis, to investigate the impact that these
stressors have on the fish at the cellular level.
Joined 2023
Raven Bennett (she/they)
BSc Honours Student
In Progress BSc (Honours) - University of Manitoba
Raven is an undergraduate student interested in how climate change affects epigenetics, physiology, and performance of freshwater fishes. In collaboration with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, her Honour’s thesis is investigating the effect of chronic thermal stress on gene expression and metabolic markers in bull trout. As an Indigenous scientist (Anishinaabe from Treaty 1), she seeks to braid Traditional Ecological Knowledge together with Western Science methodologies for the conservation and management of species at risk, and to bring Indigenous perspectives and practices into her research.
PAST MEMBERS
Post-Doctoral Researchers
Dr. Aaron Boyd (2024-2025)
Dr. Alyssa Weinrauch (2023-2024)
Dr. Shahinur Islam (2021-2023)
Dr. Carol Best (2022-2023)
Dr. Michael Lawrence (2019-2021)
Dr. Jennifer Jeffrey (2018-2021)
PhD Students
Thais Bernos (2018-2023)
William Bugg (2017-2022)
Matthew Thorstensen (2018-2021)
MSc Students
Krista Robertson (2022-2024)
Sonya Michaleski (2019-2023)
Carolyn Vandervelde (2021-2022)
Christina Schaefer (2019-2020)
Theresa Mackey MSc (2018-2020)
McKenzie Hauger MSc (2018-2020)
Josh Sutherby MSc (2017-2019)
Honours Students
Jordan Kroeker (2019-2020)
Danny Gedig (2019-2020)
Michaela McKennitt (2019-2020)
Scott Morrison (2018-2019)
Hunter Carlson (2017-2018)
Undergraduate Students
Taylor MacLeod (2022)
Bronson Ramoutar (2022)
Kyra Shewchuk (2021)
Danny Gedig (2020)
Michaela McKennitt (2018, 2020)
Jordan Kroeker (2020)
Kim Ta (CO-OP, 2019)
Cobi Wiwchar (2018)
Technicians
Elli Hung (2024-2025)
Dejana Mitrovic - Wilfrid Laurier University (2019-2020)
Darren Foubister - Wilfrid Laurier University (2018)
Mike Gaudry (2017-2018)