Dr. Thomas Sanger
I received my Ph.D. in 2008 from Washington University in St. Louis and began at Loyola University Chicago in 2016. I am committed to advancing the professional development of all my lab members. Everyone’s lab experience is personalized based on their career goals, whether aimed at developing the skills for academia, education, industry, or medicine. I encourage students interested in our research areas to contact me if interested in joining the lab.
Graduate students
Sylvia Nunez
Sylvia joined the lab in 2017. Her project focuses on elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying craniofacial malformations in thermal stressed Anolis lizards.
Lilian Arnaoudoff
Lily, an established visual artist, joined the lab in 2018. Her project focuses on developing a 3D staging series for the brown anole and quantifying changes in brain morphology among lizards incubated at different temperatures.
Undergraduate students
Ryan Bonate
Ryan has been working with our geckos for about a year, but is now taking over a project aimed at understanding the role of androgens in development of reptilian genitalia.
Seerat Dhindsa
Seerat, an LUC Biology student specializing on using fluorescent in situ hybridization to uncover patterns of gene expression in Anolis toe pads.
Clara Fix
Clara joined the lab following her experience in the First Year Research Experience (FYRE) program. She is studying the genetic basis of Anolis toe pad variation in collaboration with the Stuart Lab.
Robert Fuentes
Robert is generating a large comparative three-dimensional database of lizard skull morphology. When not picking specimens off the shelves of the Field Museum, his time is largely spent feeding lizard specimens into the CT scanner.
Michelle Hajduk
Michelle is a senior Molecular Biology who joined the lab as a freshman. She received an external grant from the Mindlin Foundation as a sophomore. Her research focuses on the role of heat shock proteins in lizard embryos experiencing thermal stress.
Brigid Janos
Brigid joined the lab following her experience in the First Year Research Experience (FYRE) program. She is studying the genetic basis of Anolis toe pad variation in collaboration with the Stuart Lab.
Samuel Jaros
Sam is a senior Bioinformatics and Sociology student and the anchor to our team studying the development of mammalian plantar pads.
Elyse Laps
Elyse is one of the newest members of the Sanger Lab. She is working on understanding the development of male-like geniltalia in female lizards.
Arlisse Lim
Arlisse is generating a large comparative three-dimensional database of lizard skull morphology. Her time is largely spent feeding lizard specimens into the CT scanner.
Hannah Maher
Hannah has been part of the Sanger Lab for approximately one year. She recently embarked on an independent research project investigating the intrinsic buffering mechanisms of reptilian embryos experiencing heat stress.
Ameer Odeh
Ameer has been with the lab for three years. He has been focusing on determining the expression of androgens in the developing gonads and genitalia of lizards.
Alyson Reese
Alyson, an LUC Biology student and captain of the cheer team, specializes on using fluorescent in situ hybridization to uncover patterns of gene expression in Anolis toe pads.
Jillian Schuberth
Jillian is working with Sylvia Nunez to understand the role of oxidative stress in the formation of cranial malformations in thermally stressed lizard embryos.
Alexandrea Turnquist
Alex is a LUC Molecular Biology major. Alex works on a variety of projects, but is rapidly becoming one of the lab’s specialists in processing 3D CT data. Look for her work on Anolis brains coming soon.
Join the lab
Are you interested in joining the lab? If so, please review the research we are doing to make sure that it aligns with your interests. After that, send me your information via email.
Lab Alumni
Patricia Chen
Gannon Cottone
Laura Harding
Laura Krance
Judith Kyrkos
Dryden Lachance
Nicholas Sedlacek
Brittni Walker
Former Lab Technicians
Beata Czesny