People

Principal Investigator

Katherine Corn

Katherine, a blondish white woman with glasses, smiles at the camera.I am an evolutionary biologist and functional morphologist with a real passion for fishes. Questions I ask include: How do interactions with the physical environment facilitate the evolution of organismal diversity? What factors promote or slow morphological and functional evolution? How can we better use our knowledge of mechanical systems to model the evolution of the lineages that use them?

I received my PhD from the Center for Population Biology at UC Davis, where I worked with Peter Wainwright exploring the effect of coral reefs and feeding mode on the evolution of diversity in reef fishes. Following that I moved to Virginia Tech to postdoc with Josef Uyeda. As an undergraduate I worked with Adam Summers and Stacy Farina at Friday Harbor Marine Labs on a shark tooth saw and with Willy Bemis at Cornell on the development of sevengill shark teeth; I started off as an undergraduate at the small liberal arts college, Bard College at Simon's Rock. Aside from fish, I like hockey, baking pies, and sustainable agriculture. My Erdös number is 6.

Graduate Students

Clay Pollock

Clay, an asian man with short black hair, stands among rows of jars in a resaerch collection. He is holding a preserved shark and smiling at it. M.S. Student, School of Biological Sciences, Washington State University (2024 - present)
B.A. Biology - Marine Concentration, Occidenal College (2020)
Fishes are the most diverse group of vertebrates, and I am interested in studying variations in their functional morphology and physiology and how they develop.
You can contact Clay by email at clay.pollock "at" wsu "dot" edu.

Conner Museum

Jessica Tir

Jess, a white woman with long brown hair, smiles at the camera. Curator & Collections Manager, Conner Museum of Vertebrates 2024 - pres.
M.S. Biology, Washington State University (2023)
B.S. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University (2017)
A.A. Chemistry, Holmes Community College (2013)
I handle the day-to-day operations of the Conner Museum including fulfilling loan requests, preparing and caring for specimens, and managing data. I am particularly excited about creating and curating open-access biodiversity data, whether that’s via citizen science platforms or the museum’s Arctos databases. I am also passionate about SciComm and spreading the joy of nature!
My research background is in animal behavior with a focus on avian bioacoustics.
You can contact Jess by email at jessica.tir "at" wsu "dot" edu.