Former Post-Doctoral Scholar

Alex Kingston
Alex got her BS from Arizona State University. She received her PhD from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she studied extraocular photoreception with Tom Cronin. Alex joined the Speiser lab in the Fall of 2015 where she began studying the molecular, structural, and functional complexities of dispersed visual systems in chitons and scallops. Alex also studies the co-evolution of weaponry, armor, and vision in snapping shrimp. Alex enjoys (studying, not eating) crustaceans and molluscs, coffee, making messes, and logic. Alex is currently an Assistant Professor of Biological Science at the University of Tulsa.

Graduated PhD Student

Dan Chappell
Dan got his B.S. from Ohio University. He completed his PhD at UofSC in 2022 and is now an NRC post-doc at the Air Force Research Lab. Dan works on a wide range of questions in different systems. His PhD project concerned the neurobiology of animals with distributed visual systems such as chitons and scallops. Dan enjoys rock climbing, injecting chitons with fluorescent dyes, and being the best Dan in the lab.

Former Research Specialist

Hazel Havens
Hazel got her BS in biology from USC in 2016. As an undergraduate in the Speiser Lab (2014-16), she studied the neural processing associated with the distributed visual system of scallops. Later, as a Research Specialist (2016-18), she built custom computers, specialized optical devices, and automated electrophysiological systems. Along with adding to her research toolkit, learning to speak machine has helped Hazel hone her questions about processing in our non-silico subjects. Hazel appreciates food, dance, and when spec sheets are more than aspirational. Hazel is currently a PhD student in Ken Lohmann's lab at UNC Chapel Hill.

Graduated MSc Students



Jamie Clark
Jamie (she/her) is a Ph.D. researcher in Dr. Matt Ramirez's Lab at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington (UNCW) studying sea turtle population ecology and age estimation techniques. She received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina with an emphasis in Biological Oceanography in 2018. As an accelerated master’s student in Dr. Speiser’s lab, Jamie studied the restoration of visual performance during eye regeneration in the Florida fighting conch. After USC, Jamie worked at the NOAA Fisheries Beaufort, NC Laboratory for 5 years in sea turtle and fisheries biology and life history. While working towards her Ph.D. in Marine Biology at UNCW, she aspires to gain analytical skills and apply them in assessing the health of protected species populations. Her dissertation research is focused on developing, calibrating, and validating age estimation tools (Near InfraRed Spectroscopy and DNA methylation) for aging live sea turtles in collaboration with NOAA Fisheries. Outside the lab, you’ll find Jamie beachcombing, building things in the garden, or at the dog park with her pup, Dexter.
Nick Steichmann
Nick got his BA in Biology from Augustana College in 2018 and graduated from USC with a MS in 2024 PhD. At USC, Nick asked if the accessory eyes of caridean shrimp contribute to light-influenced behaviors and dynamic color change, particularly with regards to camouflage and predator avoidance. He is also interested in analogous systems in other taxa, such as the parietal eyes of reptiles. Nick is an outdoors enthusiast who enjoys camping, fishing, scuba diving, and hiking with his dog.
Natalie Sanchez
Natalie graduated from the University of Pennsylvania ('16). with a major in Biology, a minor in psychology, and interests in  conservation biology and ecology. As a MSc student at USC, she is studying the effects that environmental stressors experienced during larval development, particularly in the form of temperature variation along elevational gradients, have on the visual ecology of butterflies. She is particularly focusing on differences in the visual processing ability, eye size, and wing morphology of the insects in response to their developmental environment. She is also interested in how changes to these factors may affect interactions between interspecifics, particularly as it relates to mate recognition.