James Nieh, Professor of Biological Sciences & Associate Dean of Biological Sciences

jnieh@ucsd.edu
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James Nieh is interested in the evolution of communication in social bees and factors that influence honey bee health. He focuses on the proximate mechanisms involved in foraging, food alertment, and recruitment in the social bees (Bombini, Apini, and Meliponini). His goal is develop a greater understanding how such foraging systems work and what selective pressures have shaped the evolution of foraging communication. His second major focus is on the effects of pesticides and pathogens on honey bee behavior and health.

Ashley Kim, PhD Candidate
2020 to current

ask002@ucsd.edu
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Ashley is interested in how honey bee can adapt to changing daily food availability and is focusing on the shaking signal, a signal that may regulate daily colony activity.

Aria Loduca, MS
2020 to current

floduca@ucsd.edu

Aria is studying how omega-3 fatty acids, essential nutrients for bees, can improve honey bee survival and olfactory learning, after bees are exposed to sublethal doses of pesticides. Aria earned her MS in the lab in December 2021.

Brandi Sanchez, MS
2023 to current

brsanche@ucsd.edu

A prediction of the honey bee waggle dance learning hypothesis is that bees need to learn the dance to better cope with an unpredictable environment, including the naturally irregular dance floor.Brandi is testing this hypothesis.

Former Lab Members

Kevin Kubo, BSMS candidate
2021 to 2022

kkubo@ucsd.edu

Kevin studied the efficacy of a light-based treatment for bees exposed to pesticides.

Anngely Leeds, BSMS candidate
2021 to 2022

acleeds@ucsd.edu

Anngely studied heat and cold tolerance of feral and managed honey bees in Southern California.

Brandon Mukogawa, BSMS candidate
2021 to 2022

bmukogaw@ucsd.edu

Brandon studied the hygienic behavior in feral and managed honey bees in Southern California, focused on how feral colonies can thrive despite being given no treatments against a major parasite, Varroa destructor.

Linda Tong, MS Candidate
2016 to 2017

litong@ucsd.edu

Linda studied the effects of pesticides on honey bee flight ability.

Alex Neskovic, Master's Candidate
2015

aneskovi@ucsd.edu

Alex studied ways to boost honey bee immunity against infections by the pathogen, Nosema ceranae.

Lindsay Goldasich, MS
2015 to 2016

lindsayisderight@gmail.com

Lindsay studied how the neonicotinoid pesticide, imidacloprid, affects the ability of honey bees to avoid predation. She is interested in the broader implications of how xenobiotics affect the food web by cognitively impairing the decisions of prey.

Jennifer Hayward, MS
2016

s0908487@sms.ed.ac.uk

Jennifer studied the effects of pesticides on honey bee nectar foraging and recruitment behavior.

Chase James, MS Candidate
2011 to 2016

chasejames10@gmail.com

Chase tested the toxic pheromone hypothesis, focusing on how a potentially toxic pheromone may provide a honest signal of fighting superiority in the obligate cleptoparasitic Lestrimelitta nitkib.

Aggelina Kanellopoulous, Master's Candidate
2015

aggelina.kanellopoulou@gmail.com

Aggelina studied the effects of pesticide on honey bee phototaxis and locomotion.

Erica Zhang, Master's Candidate
2012 to 2014

erzhang@ucsd.edu

Erica studied the effects of neonicotinoid pesticides on honey bee learning.

Matt Endler, Master's Candidate
2012 to 2014

mendler@ucsd.edu

Matt studied how honey bee larvae can be infected with Nosema ceranae and how honey bee immune systems can be activated to resist such infection.

Antoine Lecocq, Phd candidate visiting from the University of Copenhagen
2014

antoine@plen.ku.dk

Antoine studied the effect of Nosema ceranae infection on honey bee social behaviors.

Lee BenVau, Master's Candidate
2011 to 2013

leebenvau@gmail.com

Lee studied the links between an egg precusor protein, vitellogenin, which is associated with honey bee longevity, health, and immune function and the ability of bees to resist pollutants such as pesticides.

Spencer Huey, Master's Candidate
2011 to 2013

sdhuey@ucsd.edu

Spencer has been a Master's student in the Nieh Lab since 2011. He studied how honey bees and native bee pollinators respond to insect and spider predators.

Allison Bray, Master's Candidate
2011 to 2013

abray@ucsd.edu

Allison has been a Master's student in the Nieh Lab since 2011. Her work examined how honey bees detect and avoid predators while foraging on flowers.

Kyle Burks, Independent Researcher
2009 to 2013

kyleburks@gmail.com

Since 2009, Kyle studied the function of bumble bee labial gland secretions inside and outside the nest. Labial glads secretions play an important role in stingless bee recruitment, but its function in bumble bees is not known.

Daren Eiri, MS, Independent Researcher
2007 to 2013

deiri@ucsd.edu
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Daren Eiri has been involved in the lab since 2007 and originally worked on bumble bee acoustic recruitment. His Master's research focused on the sublethal effects the pesticide, imidacloprid, on honey bee foraging behavior. Daren graduated from UCSD in 2009 with a B.S. in Ecology, Behavior and Evolution and received his Master's in Biology in 2011. He also studied how Nosema infection affects the development of honey bee larvae.

Meg Eckles, PhD Candidate
2004 to 2012

meg.eckles@gmail.com
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Meg joined the lab in 2004 while she was an undergraduate, and began UCSD's PhD program in 2005. Her work focuses on cognition in bumblebees, how stingless bee use optic flow to measure distance and height, and testing functionally referential communication in the stingless bee Melipona panamica. Her previous work has included behavioral thermoregulation in yellowjackets (Vespula pennsylvanica). Her general research interests include cognition, learning and behavioral ecology of wasps and stingless bees. Meg graduated from UCSD in 2005 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Systems: Ecology, Behavior and Evolution. She received her PhD from the Division of Biological Sciences at UCSD in 2012. In 2016, Meg became an Assistant Professor of Biology and the Director of Biotechnology at Southwestern College.

Eben Goodale, Visiting Scholar

egoodale@ucsd.edu
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Eben joined the lab in 2010 as an ornithologist excited about the possibilities of working with social insects. Eben's research focuses on interspecific communication and its effect on community ecology. His past work has focused on alarm calling and vocal mimicry in mixed-species bird flocks, mostly in Sri Lanka. In the Nieh lab, Eben focused on interspecific information exchange about foraging between honey bees and bumble bees. In 2012, he began a new faculty position in China. For more details see his website.

Ralph Tyler Jack McCollough, MS
2009 to 2012

tjack@ucsd.edu

Tyler was been a Master's student in the Nieh Lab since 2009. He graduated in 2012. His work focused on aversive learning and inhibitory signaling in honey bees and demonstrated that attacks from natural honey bee predators can elicit a signal that inhibits waggle dancing, the stop signal.

Brian Park, MS
2009 to 2012

brpark@ucsd.edu

Brian Park is a former Masters student (graduated in 2012) studying seasonal influences on honey bee foraging in a semi-urban setting to determine what pollen resources, native and introduced, are important to bees throughout the year. He used genetic barcoding of collected pollen to identify the plants visited and the honey bee dance language to determine where bees have foraged.

Elinor Lichtenberg, PhD
2005 to 2011

elichten@ucsd.edu
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Elinor joined the Nieh lab in 2005. Her thesis research focuses on use of heterospecific scent marks (olfactory eavesdropping) by stingless bees. General research interests communication, foraging behavior, social information use, aggression and competition. As an undergraduate, Elinor studied a visual communication system in stalk-eyed flies (Cyrtodiopsis whitei) in the lab of Dr. Jerry Wilkinson. Prior to beginning UCSD's PhD program, she participated in an internship at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., seeking to improve captive kori bustard (Ardeotis kori) breeding success through behavioral research. Elinor obtained her Bachelor of Science (Biology: Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics) from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2003.

Jessica Hagbery, MS
2009 to 2011

jhagbery@ucsd.edu

Jessica studied foraging division of labor in bumble bees (Bombus impatiens), focusing on how individuals and colonies adapt to the loss of pollen foraging specialists. She demonstrated that generalist foragers could adaptively shift their preferences and collect significantly more pollen after pollen foraging specialists were removed and showed that these same generalists reverted to their original preferences when pollen specialists were restored.

Eduard Deneke, visiting MS student
2010

eduard.deneke@googlemail.com

Eddie studied bumble bee foraging and alarm activation.

Brian Johnson, former Postdoctoral Fellow
2008 to 2009

brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu
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Brian is currently a Professor in the Department of Entomology at UC Davis where he uses honey bees as a model system to examine multiple questions in the areas of Behavioral Ecology and Behavioral Genetics.

Dan Su, MS
2006 to 2009

dan.kn.su@gmail.com

Dan studied foraging and alarm activation in the bumble bee, Bombus impatiens.

Traci Kitaoka, MS
2006 to 2008

tkimikok@gmail.com

Traci studied how pollen odor can activate bumble bee pollen foraging.

Michelle Renner, MS
2005 to 2007

michelle.a.renner@gmail.com

Michelle studied bumble bee olfactory information flow and contact based foraging activation.

Constantine Lau, MS
2005 to 2007

lau.constantine@gmail.com

Constantine studied the proximate causes of an inhibitory signal, the stop signal, in honey bees.

Felipe Contrera, former Postdoctoral Fellow
2005 to 2006

felipe@ufpa.br
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Felipe is currently an Associate Professor at the Universidade Federal do Pará in Belém, Brazil, where he studies the highly social bees, focusing on stingless bees as model systems. His research interests include Behavioral Ecology, Animal Communication, and Meliponiculture.

Katherine Mapalad, MS
2004 to 2006

kmapalad@gmail.com

Katherine studied the effect of pollen protein quality on bumble bee thoracic temperatures.

Nik Sadler, MS
2003 to 2005

Nik studied the effect of honey bee recruitment motivation on forager thoracic temperatures.

Hien Nguyen, MS
2003 to 2005

henry6@gmail.com

Hien studied the foraging activation in the bumble bee species, Bombus occidentalis.