Hartline-Lenz-Castelfranco Lab Opportunities

(Updated September 2025)

Below are general descriptions of employment and/or training opportunities in the lab. Please contact our lead PI, Dr. Petra Lenz (petra at hawaii dot edu) for the latest information.

Areas of opportunity:

Three P.I.'s, Petra Lenz (Lab pages) , Ann Castelfranco, and Dan Hartline (Lab pages) , form a collaborative research group with position opportunities from time to time in several areasprimarily focused on copepods in the Gulf of Alaska:

Copepod neuroecology and population dynamics
Copepod transcriptomics and physiological ecology

Opportunities for undergraduate student trainees open most frequently, owing to graduation-generated vacancies. For motivated students with experience in the lab and time available, these can lead to employent. Interdisciplinary work bridging areas is also possible. As with much federally-funded basic research, long-term employment cannot (unfortunately) be guaranteed. Positions are funded through the periodic competitive research grant application process. We welcome inquiries regarding current opportunities as well as those that would develop additional collaborative funded proposals for work in our areas of interest.

Post-baccalaureate Trainees

General information: Our research projects cover a range of topics involving the ecophysiology of marine crustaceans, especially calanoid copepods. We currently work on both warm-water species available in Hawaii (including copepods in long-term cultures), and cold water copepod species from the Gulf of Alaska. Approaches include molecular (transcriptomics and bioinformatics), morphological (immunohistochemistry, confocal micrscopy and electron microscopy), applied to problems in population cycles (diapause), predator-prey interactions and other aspects of marine crustacean behavioral and physiological ecology. Some projects extend more broadly to decapod crustaceans of Puget Sound and Gulf of Maine and to insect model systems (Andy Christie).

Mechanics: We accept graduate students through the Graduate Program of the Department of Zoology (Hartline, Lenz), the Oceanography Department (Lenz), and the Marine Biology Program (Lenz). Support on TAships is available (competitively) for incoming Zoology students. Grant support for students working on thesis research needs to be arranged in advance, and inquiry should be made about future prospects when you contact the lab. The departments grant both Masters and PhD degrees (see Zoology program; Zoology application deadline is December 15 of each year: click for application information). At times we are able to host internships for graduate students from other universities if they are at least partially supported by the home institution. Owing to costly UH and granting-agency policy changes, Postdoctoral candidates are strongly encouraged to submit applications for their own support in collaboration with one of the faculty here.

Contact: Petra Lenz for general inquiries.

SPECIFIC PROJECTS

Copepod ecophysiology: A project focused on the annual lifecycle of calanid copepods, which migrate to deep waters (>400m) followed by dormancy during the summer in the Gulf of Alaska. In the winter to early spring they reporduce, with different species on somewhat different schedules. The project aims are to understand the physiology underlying the different phases of preparing for, entering and emerging from dormancy, the growth of the offspring, and the susceptibiliy of their populations to perturbation, including those predicted to result from global climate change. The ork involves a combination of transcriptomics, morphometry, and fluorescent tagging as well as oceanographic cruises with ship-board sampling on the Seward Line and experiments. For information, contact Petra Lenz.

2. Undergraduate Students

We welcome motivated undergraduates interested in hands-on research experience related to the projects in our lab. Several avenues for such experience maybe available:

Biology 499 projects - these projects may be short term (1 semester) or longer, but typically require a commitment of 3 - 6 units (10 - 20 hours per week). They are entered on by contacting a mentor who is listed as 499 faculty.
Honors projects - contact UH Honors Program; These projects typically require a substantial time investment in the junior and senior years.
UROP projects - these projects entail a UH undergraduate submitting a grant application to the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program to work on their own independent research. The proposal should be developed in consultation with the proposed mentor. It can provide salary support as well as supplies and travel as needed for the research. While not required by the UROP program, the lab usually expects a write-up, which is potentially submitted as a peer-reviewed manuscript for publication. Applications are due in early October.
Employee projects - after working for some time in the lab as a lab assistant ("student helper"), motivated employees may be invited to take a portion of the work they are supporting as a special project with specific goals, in some cases resulting in a publication. This type of position can be stipend-supported.
REU projects - Some universities (including UH) sponsor NSF-funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates. Search the NSF site to see if suitable programs are currently being offered for research projects and mentors of interest. These are typically for intensive summer research experiences, incompatible with attending summer school. Applications are typically due February 1.

Representative undergraduate projects:

Photosensory behavior Directed research course projects on responsiveness of copepods and fish (extension of recent projects):
1. Copepod phototactic behavior
2. Copepod circadian rhythmicity
Transcriptomics as an ecophysiological tool: Mining copepod (and other arthropod) transcriptomic and genomic databases. Assesing experimentally-incuded gene expression changes.
Other copepod-related projects
1. Copepod respiration
2. "Bar coding" Hawaii copepods and other crustacean plankters; establishing geographic distributions of haplotypes
3. Copepod escape behavior: Behavioral studies of escape reactions of developmental stages of copepods.
Modeling projects
1. Hydrodynamics of copepod swimming
2. Conduction of nerve impulses in myelinated axons
Foreign students: While we are open to applications from students in study-abroad programs, visas and financial support are amajor issue at present. The problems vary on an individual basis. We have had some past success with such programs, but the initial arrangements must usually be made by the student. An EXCELLENT command of written and spoken English is essential.

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