THE WHITEMAN LABORATORY
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      • Parris Humphrey
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Parris T. Humphrey
Ph.D. candidate

University of Arizona
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
BioSciences West Room 310
1041 East Lowell Street
Tucson, Arizona 85721

Office: BioSciences West 333
Email: pth [at] email [dot] arizona [dot] edu
Picture

Education

  • Ph.D. candidate, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, August 2009–present
  • B.A., Biology; Science, Technology & Society (STS), Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. 2006.

Research Interests

I have a general interest in the ways microbes run the world through their interactions with plants and animals as well as their influence on fundamental abiotic processes in the environment. More specifically, I focus on the mechanistic bases and ecological consequences of interactions among leaf-dwelling bacteria, specialist insect herbivores, and the plant hosts that they share.

A few of my projects in the Whiteman Lab seek to understand the...
  • fitness effects of multi-tropic interactions and the genetic basis of differential outcomes for parasites and their hosts.
  • role of insect herbivores in the population dynamics of pathogens of native plants in the Rocky Mountains.
  • direct and indirect interactions among parasites that co-infect hosts.
  • role of phenotypic trade-offs in shaping species interactions with natural enemies.

Publications

O’Connor, T.K.*, P.T. Humphrey*, R. Lapoint, N.K. Whiteman, P. O’Grady. Microbial symbioses in the ecology and evolution of Hawaiian Drosophilidae. In review at Frontiers in Microbiology. *equal contribution.

Humphrey, P.T., A.D. Gloss, H.A. Affeldt III, J. Frazier, A.N. Dittrich, & N.K. Whiteman. Decoupling of a growth–defense tradeoff across an ecotone in a native forb. In review at Journal of Ecology.

Humphrey, P.T., T.T. Nguyen, M. Villalobos, & N.K. Whiteman. 2014. Diversity and abundance of phyllosphere bacteria are linked to insect herbivory. Molecular Ecology. 23:1497–515. (Special issue on Nature’s Microbiome; cover article).

Wilbanks, E.G., U. Jaekel, V. Salman, P.T. Humphrey, J.A. Eisen, M.T. Facciotti, D.H. Buckley, S.H. Zinder, G.K. Druschel, D.A. Fike, & V.J. Orphan. 2014. Micro-scale sulfur cycling in the phototrophic pink berry consortia of the Sippewissett Salt Marsh. Environmental Microbiology, In press. doi:10.1111/1462-2920.12388.    

Thaler, J.S., P.T. Humphrey, & N.K. Whiteman. 2012. Evolution of signal cross-talk between jasmonate and salicylate in plants. Trends in Plant Science 17:260-270 (Special issue on specificity of plant–natural enemy interactions).

Whiteman, N.K., A.D. Gloss, T. Sackton, S. Groen, P.T. Humphrey, R. Lapoint, I. Sønderby, B.A. Halkier, C. Kocks, F.M. Ausubel & N.E. Pierce. 2012. Genes involved in the evolution of herbivory by a leaf-mining drosophilid fly. Genome Biology and Evolution. Jan;4(9):788-804. (Featured article).

Onder, O., P.T. Humphrey, B. McOmber, F. Korobova, N. Francella, D.C. Greenbaum, and D. Brisson. 2012. OspC Is potent plasminogen receptor on surface of Borrelia burgdorferi. Journal of Biological Chemistry 287:16860–16868.

Brisson, D., C. Brinkley, P.T. Humphrey, B.D. Kemps, and R.S. Ostfeld. 2011. It takes a community to raise the prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Infectious Diseases vol. 2011: 2011:741406.    

Humphrey PT, Caporale DA, Brisson D. 2010. Uncoordinated phylogeography of Borrelia burgdorferi and its tick vector, Ixodes scapularis. Evolution 64 (9): 2653-63.

Humphrey PT 2006. Investigating the ability of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to disinfect black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) of the Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi. Undergraduate Thesis, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY.

Honors and Awards

  • Darwin–Wallace Biodiversity Scholarship (Univ. of Arizona), 2014.
  • College of Science/EEB Dept. (Univ. of Arizona) Graduate Teaching Award, 2014.
  • Graduate and Professional Student Council (Univ. of Arizona) Research Award, 2014.
  • Graduate and Professional Student Council (Univ. of Arizona) Travel Award, 2014.
  • Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (Univ. of Arizona) Summer Research Award, 2013.
  • NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, 2013.
  • Center for Insect Science (Univ. of Arizona) Dissertation Research Fellowship, 2012.
  • Dr. Lee Snyder Memorial Fellowship (Rocky Mountain Biological Lab), 2012.
  • Center for Insect Science (Univ. of Arizona) Travel Award, 2011.
  • Graduate Research Fellowship (Rocky Mountain Biological Lab), 2011.
  • Galileo Circle Scholarship (Univ. of Arizona), 2011.
  • NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Honorable Mention, 2009.

Background

After growing up in Los Angeles, I moved to New York to attend Eugene Lang College where I focused on writing and Science, Technology and Society Studies (STS). After my third semester, I transfered to Bard College to study biology with a focus on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases. I received my BA from Bard in 2006 with focuses in both Biology and Science, Technology & Society Studies (STS). At Bard, I worked with Dr. Felicia Keesing to examine the ecological effects of white-tailed deer as hosts for ticks and Lyme disease bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferia, as well as the relationship between scientific knowledge and politics for disease control strategies emerging from both the private and public sectors.

From 2006–2009, I continued working on the Lyme disease system with Dr. Dustin Brisson at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia PA. With grants from both NIH and CDC, we studied the role of host ecology (rodents, shrews, birds, etc) on the population structure of the Lyme pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi. We also examined the molecular interactions between host and bacterial factors that define the apparent host specificity of various strains of B. burgdorferi that co-occur within natural populations. In addition, using phylogeographic approaches, my work explored the contemporary distribution of ixodid ticks and B. burgdorferi throughout North America to uncover how Pleistocene de-glaciation affected the historical spread of the various components of this disease system. Lastly, I was involved in developing an ecological vaccine aimed at reducing transmission from hosts to ticks in the field.

Why I Love Tucson

UA Cycling Team
El Grupo Youth Cycling
Bicas
KXCI
Sky Island Alliance
No Más Muertes
Picture
The Whiteman Lab | Integrative Biology | University of California | Berkeley, CA 94720

Photographs are copyright protected by Noah Whiteman, Whiteman lab members, or were obtained through Creative Commons licenses.
  • Home
  • Group Members
    • Principal Investigator, Dr. Noah Whiteman
    • Research Specialist Susan Bernstein
    • Postdoctoral Researchers and Research Associates >
      • Dr. Samridhi Chaturvedi
      • Dr. Moe Bakhtiari
      • Dr. Benjamin Goldman-Huertas
      • Dr. Carolina Reisenman
    • Graduate Students >
      • Jessica Aguilar
      • Nicolas Alexandre
      • Diler Haji
      • Julianne Pelaez
      • Hiromu Suzuki
      • Rebecca Tarnopol
      • Kirsten Isabel Verster
    • Undergraduate Students >
      • Saron Akalu
      • Jaden Ha
      • Selah-Marie Grogan
      • Gillian Oaks
      • Ashleigh Takemoto
      • Jossie Tamsil
    • Former members >
      • Eric Rogers
      • Ted Chor
      • Dr. Teruyuki Matsanaga
      • Anna Pham
      • Anna Leipertz
      • Michael Astourian
      • Ashley Bendl
      • Elizabeth Ordeman
      • Bridget Cheng
      • Irene Liang
      • Gillian Montross
      • Esteban Rodas
      • Giovani Pimentel-Solorio
      • Faye Romero
      • Marissa Sandoval
      • Shivani Sundaram
      • Kannagi Yashroy
      • Derrick Yip
      • Haarini Sridhar
      • Sneha Agrawal
      • Dr. Marianna Karageorgi
      • Kevin Miao
      • Dr. Rebecca Duncan
      • Kelly D'Ambrogia
      • Jiarui Wang
      • Tim O'Connor
      • Judith Okoro
      • William Farley
      • Dr. Cathy Rushworth
      • Andy Gloss
      • Alana Augur
      • Hoon Pyon
      • Julianne Ray
      • Dr. Simon "Niels" Groen
      • Dr. David Hembry (PERT Postdoctoral Fellow)
      • Dr. Jennifer Koop (PERT Postdoctoral Fellow)
      • Dr. Anna Nelson Dittrich (PERT Postdoctoral Fellow)
      • Dr. Rick Lapoint (PERT Postdoctoral Fellow)
      • Dr. Paul Nabity (USDA-NIFA Postdoctoral Fellow)
      • Christina Meyer
      • Parris Humphrey
      • Lea Flechon
      • Research Specialist, Tim Rast
      • Amir Abidov
      • Allan Castillo
      • Matt Cravens
      • Mitchell Feldmann
      • Jason Giles
      • Lauren Johnston
      • Noel Kitchen
      • Erika LaPlante
      • Matthew J. Velasquez
    • Internal page >
      • Protocols
      • Recommended Reading
  • Research
  • Publications
  • DEI
    • #leadership
    • #participation
    • #recruitment
    • #belonging
    • #accountability
  • Join
  • Contact
  • "Monarch Fly"