Meet the Team
Claire Kremen, PhD
Contact Details
claire.kremen [@] ubc.ca
Room 207, Beaty Biodiversity Research Centre
Current lab Members
Staff
Tyler Kelly
2020-Present
I am a pollinator expert with almost 10 years of experience working with insects and plants. The majority of my work has focused on plant-pollinator interactions in the pacific and intermountain regions of North America. I am frequently invited to give pollinator ecology, biodiversity, and identification workshops and am one of a handful of professionals in western Canada who is capable of identifying bees to the species level. In addition to pollinator work, I am proficient with the R programming language and data management. For example, I created a database work flow system to facilitate digitizing, classifying, and managing large numbers of insect specimens using R, LaTeX, and Microsoft Office.
Post-doctoral researchers
Contact Details
nina.sokolov[at]ubc[dot]ca
Dr. Nina Sokolov
2026-Present
Nina is a postdoctoral research fellow at IRES in the WoRCS lab with Dr. Claire Kremen. Nina is a disease ecologist and entomologist interested in how crop pollination events affect viruses in both managed and native bees. She received her PhD in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley with Dr. Michael Boots. Her research focused on the viral dynamics of bees in Northern California and the evolution of parasite resistance in honey bee breeding and management. Prior to starting at UBC, she completed a postdoctoral appointment at UC Berkeley, focusing on the microbial community of the imperiled western bumble bee (Bombus occidentalis). At IRES, she will be part of the Perennial Ecosystem Restoration for Carbon Sequestration in Canadian Agricultural Landscapes (PERCS) project, where she is investigating how agricultural diversification at farms in BC influences pollinator diseases.
PhD students
Tatiana Chamorro
2022-Present
I am a biologist from Colombia, highly interested in biodiversity conservation and ecology. During my bachelor’s at the National University of Colombia, I was part of the Herpetology research group. Some of the projects we did as a team were about the Knowledge and relationship of a rural community with the herpetofauna of its region and How the microhabitat and activity pattern of an Andean lizard species changed across an altitudinal gradient. Currently, my research interest is related to how to do agriculture in a sustainable way that benefits nature and people. In my free time, I enjoy traveling, playing sports (specially volleyball and ping-pong), and reading.
Contact Details
jeenat26 [at] student [dot] UBC [dot] ca
Jeenat Jeenat
2025-Present
I am a PhD student in the Department of Zoology at UBC under the supervision of Professor Claire Kremen. Before starting my PhD, I completed a Master’s degree in Zoology at Panjab University, India, where I tested drugs for leishmaniasis using in vitro and in vivo approaches, including work involving BALB/c mouse models. I also gained experience in insect biodiversity and taxonomy, which includes leading a project that confirmed the rediscovery of a long-lost cicada species in India.
As part of the PERCS (Perennial Ecosystem Restoration for Carbon Sequestration in Canadian Agricultural Landscapes) project, I study how perennial habitat restoration, such as hedgerow plantings, affects bumblebee health, with a focus on parasite prevalence. I am interested in how habitat restoration can support healthier pollinator populations.
Contact Details
orloff5 [at] student [dot] UBC [dot] ca
Alishia Orloff
2025-Present
TBD
Contact Details
duncan.macnaughton [at] ubc.ca
Duncan MacNaughton
2021-Present
Duncan is an PhD student in the Faculty of Zoology. His research focuses on the impacts of agricultural expansion on pollinator communities in the South Okanagan Valley’s at-risk antelope brush ecosystems. Growing up in the Okanagan, Duncan developed a passion for protecting these ecosystems, which are being lost at an alarming rate. Duncan completed his BSc in Natural Resources Conservation through the UBC Faculty of Forestry in 2021.
Duncan’s hobbies include kayaking, hiking, photography, and music.
Contact Details
melanson [at] zoology.ubc.ca
Jenna Melanson
2020-Present
I am a PhD student in the Department of Zoology at UBC, supervised by Professor Claire Kremen. My research addresses the behavioral responses (foraging, dispersal, colony productivity/turnover) of bumble bees in response to landscape-scale agricultural diversification, as well as risks/rewards associated with these behaviors (diet composition, pesticide exposure). Broadly speaking, I hope to learn which factors allow pollinators to persist (or not) in agricultural landscapes and how these parameters are related to land management. Prior to beginning my PhD at UBC, I received a B.S. in biological engineering at MIT, and enjoy using my molecular biology background to address applied ecological questions. Outside of the lab I’m an avid distance runner (3000m steeple / 5000m) and enjoy knitting and reading science fiction!
Contact Details
skinner [at] ubc.ca
Aaron Skinner
2022-Present
I am an applied ornithologist conducting conservation-oriented research in Nearctic-Neotropical systems. My interests are broad, and include the wildlife response to human-altered landscapes and climate change, movement ecology, ecomorphology, working landscapes that benefit both humans and wildlife, understanding the synergistic effects of climate change and habitat conversion on bird distributions, and better integrating science into policy decisions. I just finished a stint in Colombia working as a Fulbright student researcher, where I was engaged in community outreach and laying the groundwork for my doctoral research on agroforestry’s ability to facilitate bird movement and survival in fragmented landscapes conducting a preliminary field season for my PhD research. I graduated from the Tonra lab of avian ecology in 2021 with my MS from the Ohio State University, where my research aimed at elucidating poorly known phases of the annual cycle of the Eastern Whip-poor-will. I just started my PhD work at the University of British Columbia under the direction of Dr. Claire Kremen. In my free time, I enjoy playing basketball (and most sports), cooking, traveling, and hiking!
Masters students
Robin Glover
2023-Present
