Megan Vahsen
Dr. Megan Vahsen (she/her) opened her lab in the Odum School of Ecology in January 2025. She is an evolutionary ecologist who is broadly interested in how organisms respond to climate change and the consequences those responses have on population, community, and ecosystem dynamics. She uses experiments coupled with statistical and numerical modeling to address both basic and applied questions in ecology. Before UGA, Megan was a postdoctoral fellow at Utah State University. She received her PhD in Biology at the University of Notre Dame, MS in Ecology at Colorado State University, and BS in Biology at the College of William and Mary.
Sam Day Briggs
Dr. Sam Day Briggs (she/her) is a postdoc in the Vahsen Lab investigating how integrating evolution and plasticity of Schoenoplectus americanus traits in ecological models can improve predictions of eco-evolutionary responses to environmental change. Sam is interested in how global change influences community dynamics, how multiple interacting agents influence plant–mutualist relationships, and how these interactions shift across environmental gradients. She uses a variety of experimental and computational techniques to explore these research questions.
Riley Forrestall
Riley Forrestall (he/him) is the lab manager for the Vahsen Lab and has interests in how eco-evolutionary dynamics shape biodiversity and how some organisms’ unorthodox reproductive and dispersal mechanisms lead to interesting population structures and conservation strategies. He completed his Bachelor of Science degrees in Plant Biology and Ecology here at the University of Georgia and looks forward to the exciting research and community surrounding the lab!
Victoria Cone
Victoria Cone (she/her) is an undergraduate student worker in the Vahsen Lab majoring in Ecology with a minor in Wildlife and Fishers. Interested in semi-aquatic and aquatic ecosystems, continued and arising environmental stressors, natural and anthropogenic caused, and the subsequent changes in these ecosystems. With a specific interest in how man-made containments and pollutants affect flora and fauna.
Erin Brown
Erin Brown (she/her) is an undergraduate working in the Vahsen Lab, majoring in Ocean Science with a minor in Spanish. She is interested in the impact of climate change and anthropogenic stressors on coastal and marine ecosystems, and the predicted and recorded responses in areas of high stress, from the impact of increased sand temperatures on sea turtle nesting to the impact of increased carbon absorption by the ocean on calcifying organisms. She is looking forward to learning more and gaining experience in a research lab!
Lab alumni
Becca Nelson (she/her) worked on the BromeCast project in 2025 and is now an EEB presidential postdoctoral fellow at Michigan State University.