Mueller Lab Members

Dr. Casey A. Mueller
Associate Professor, PI
Casey began her faculty position at CSUSM in Fall 2015. Her research focuses on the fundamental concepts of phenotypic plasticity and critical windows during development. She is fascinated by how physiological systems develop, interact and respond to the environment and how developmental physiology influences animals later in life. Casey is enjoying working with students at CSUSM to answer a broad range of questions in the realm of comparative developmental physiology.   
You can read about her past research experiences here
Lindsey Korito - Graduate Student
Lindsey joined the lab in Fall 2017. As an undergraduate, Lindsey was involved in numerous projects, including exploring chorus frog tadpole plasticity in development in response to water depth, examining the long term impacts of the embryonic environment on tadpole physiology, and assessing the effect of temperature on copepod development. Lindsey began her Masters thesis research in Fall 2019, examining the time course of metabolic compensation in copepods. ​Some of Lindsey's hobbies include cooking, painting, and being with her animals.
Jessica Villar - Undergraduate Student
Jessica first joined the lab in Spring 2020 as a Bridges student from Palomar College. We are lucky that she is now a CSUSM student and is continuing research in the lab. Jessica has helped with rainbow trout maintenance and is currently analyzing oxygen consumption rate data of chorus frog tadpoles following incubation in different thermal conditions.

​Natalie Campos  - Undergraduate Student
Natalie joined the lab in Fall 2021. Natalie is analyzing swim speed of chorus frog tadpoles following incubation in different thermal conditions.

​Lab Alumni

Gabrielle Diaz - Undergraduate Student​
Lab member from AY 2019/20 to 2020/21. Gabby worked on various projects including assessing how embryonic temperature influences the length of rainbow trout hatchlings from Eagle Lake in Northern California, and tracking copepod development and time to adult under different temperatures. Gabby graduated in Spring 2021 and plans to attend medical school.

​Marie Ramirez - Undergraduate Student
Lab member for AY 2019/20. Marie analyzed swimming tadpoles to assess how variable temperature regimes influence swim performance. ​Marie graduated in Spring 2020 and is undertaking a PhD at Cornell University.

Taryn Broe - Undergraduate Student
Lab member from Spring '19 to Spring '20. Taryn contributed to various projects including determining best practices for assessing survival of developing copepods, examining how developmental temperature influences survival and development time in copepod populations from southern California and Oregon, and rearing rainbow trout under different temperatures. Taryn graduated in Spring 2020 and is now undertaking a PhD at UCSD.

Christopher Melendez - Graduate Student
Lab member from AY 2015/16 to 2018/19. For his senior undergraduate thesis, Chris examined the effects of temperature on brine shrimp development. His Masters research used temperature to examine critical windows of embryonic development in rainbow trout. Chris graduated in Spring 2019 and is now a PhD student at the University of North Texas in the lab of Dr. Warren Burggren.
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Samantha Manzanares - Undergraduate Student
Lab member during AY 2017/18 and 2018/19. Samantha joined the lab in Fall 2017 and worked with chorus frogs during development, exploring plasticity in development and the effects of temperature variability on function. Samantha graduated in Spring 2019.

Itzel Espejo - Undergraduate Student
Lab member during AY 2018/19. Itzel contributed to multiple projects, including measuring how temperature during critical windows of development influence rainbow trout embryos, determining the length-mass relationship in copepods, and examining the effects of variable temperature on chorus frog development. Itzel graduated in Spring 2019.

Sabrina Kazem - Undergraduate Student
Lab member during AY 2017/18. Sabrina helped with animal maintenance and data collection on our experiment exploring thermal effects on rainbow trout development. Sabrina graduated in Spring 2019. 
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Janet Solano-Sanchez - Undergraduate Student
Janet joined the lab in Spring 2018 from Palomar Community College. Janet helped with with animal maintenance and data collection on our experiment exploring thermal effects on rainbow trout development.​ Janet completed her undergraduate studies at UC Davis and is a PhD student at University of Washington.

John Hiedo - Undergraduate Student
Lab member during Fall 2017. John worked on tracking copepod development at various temperatures and helped analyze the lengths of rainbow trout hatchlings reared at different temperatures. John graduated in Spring 2021. 

Morgan Scheffler - Undergraduate Student
Lab member during AY 2016/17. Morgan completed a senior undergraduate thesis and Summer Scholarship on marine copepod metabolism using different populations and temperatures and her work resulted in a published paper. Morgan graduated in May 2017 and is currently in medical school.

Samuel Woldeyohannes - Undergraduate Student
Lab member during AY 2016/17. Samuel worked with brine shrimp rearing at different salinities and helped in rainbow trout embryo maintenance at different temperatures, performed dissections and collected mass data. Samuel graduated in May 2018.

Julie Bucsky - Undergraduate Student
Lab member during AY 2016/17. Julie worked on rearing brine shrimp under different temperatures. She also helped with morphological measurements of Baja California chorus frog embryos incubated at different temperatures. Julie graduated in May 2017.

Jonathan Kramer - Undergraduate Student
Lab member during AY 2015/16. Jonathan contributed to analysis on the effect of increased temperature during critical windows of development on lake whitefish growth and examining the conditions under which brine shrimp reproduce by live young, eggs, sexual or asexual means.
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