Hare Lab Members

Matt Hare – PI

Matt Hare
Matt Hare

My research goals are to understand the ecological, demographic and historical processes that generate population substructure and species diversity in coastal marine ecosystems, and to make these findings relevant to conservation and management when possible. In marine environments there are few absolute barriers to dispersal, yet population genetic substructure and cryptic species are common in marine taxa with high dispersal potential. This implicates cryptic physical barriers to dispersal or strong diversifying selection generating population substructure. My work focuses on both these possibilities by using genetic markers to test for larval retention and nonrandom gene flow limiting population connectivity, and by testing for the effects of natural selection at both genetic and phenotypic levels. I am using genomics to expand these questions into the realm of functional genetics, particularly with respect to selection across estuarine habitat heterogeneities and impacts of hatchery-based population supplementation.

I teach three courses:

NTRES 2830, DNA, Genes and Genetic Diversity; Introductory genetics for students in the Sustainability major and all others who want a general introduction focused as much at the population level as at the Mendelian and molecular level.

NTRES 4100, Advanced Conservation Biology (team taught with Evan Cooch); In this course we teach the demographic principles and quantitative tools necessary to conduct and interpret population viability analyses.

NTRES 7283, Graduate Seminar in Molecular Ecology; semester themes for this journal-club type of seminar vary from non-model genomics to phenotypic plasticity and assessing/managing evolutionary capacity

Current Lab Members

Postdoctoral Research Associates

  • Kira Treibergs, part of an ‘active learning’ cohort of postdocs at Cornell, focused on developing methods for improving and assessing learning in groups as well as developing curricular modules for capstone courses in the Sustainability major.

Graduate Students

  • Hannah Hartung, MS student in Natural Resources.
  • Catherine Sun – Graduated!… and starting a postdoc at University of British Columbi
  • Alyssa Wetterau, PhD student in Zoology Joint Cornell-Smithsonian Graduate Program; Smithsonian co-advisor Brian Gratwicke
  • Nick Fletcher, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. Previous President’s Fellow rotation student and continuing honorary member
  • Ellen George, Graduated!… and working with Dr. Lars Rudstam as a Postdoctoral Research Associate.

Undergraduate Students

  • Adam High, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences major
  • Kaili Gregory, Seniort in Environmental and Sustainability Sciences major and senior thesis student

Lab Manager

  • Harmony Borchardt-Wier – Lab Technician/Lab Manager

    Harmony Borchardt-Wier dissecting oysters
    Harmony Borchardt-Wier dissecting oysters

Hare Lab Alumni

Postdoctoral Associates

  • Mariah Meek – Smith Fellow working jointly in the Hare lab and Cliff Kraft’s lab, currently an assistant professor at the University of Michigan
  • Katie McFarland – Postdoc, currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Environmental Science, Horn Point Lab, University of Maryland
  • Daniel Ilut – Postdoc, currently in Plant Breeding and Genetics, Cornell University
  • Martha Burford – Postdoc, currently an Assitant Professor in the Applied Ecology department at North Carolina State University
  • Haibin Zhang – Postdoc, currently at Sanya Institute of Deep-Sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Inken Kruse – Postdoc, currently at IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany
  • Roldan Munoz – Postdoc, currently at NOAA/NFMS Beaufort, NC

Graduate Students

  • Mallory Choudoir – Microbiology PhD student with Dan Buckley, currently a postdoc at University of Colorado Boulder
  • Yuka Kutsumi – PhD student, currently a research scientist at Suntory Holdings Ltd in Kyoto, Japan
  • Laura Eierman – PhD Student, currently an assistant professor at SUNY Cortland. email
  • Mohd Zafri Hassan – PhD Student, Natural Resources, Cornell University.email
  • Peter Thompson – U. Maryland PhD, currently ORISE Fellow at USDA, Agricultural Research Service.
  • Colin Rose – U. Maryland PhD, currently teaching at Windward School.
  • Gang Chen – U. Maryland PhD, currently a postdoc in the Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island.
  • Maria Murray – U. Maryland PhD, currently Program Manager for MarineGEO, Smithsonian