People
Current Stoy Lab Members
Kayla Stoy, PI
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Dr. Stoy received her PhD in Population Biology, Ecology, and Evolution from Emory University as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She was an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Biology at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on understanding the coevolutionary dynamics underlying mutualistic species interactions. She uses a multi-faceted approach, leveraging natural insect-symbiont systems complemented with synthetic biology and experimental evolution. When she's not studying coevolution, she enjoys running and sewing.
Jason Chen, Postdoc
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Jason received his PhD in Population Biology, Ecology, and Evolution from Emory University in 2024. Jason is interested in within-host microbial ecology and how neutral processes shape symbiont acquisition, within host distribution, and transmission. He is currently constructing a transposon-mutatgenesis library to examine whether host species impose differential selection on a shared bacterial symbiont.
Wild orchid in the Swiss Alps (photo credit, Kayla Stoy):
Jason is an avid and talented cultivator of orchids, and we have placed this image here in his honor until we capture his image. ​
Audrey Miller, Undergraduate
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Audrey is an undergraduate student at Florida State University. She is broadly interested in ecology and evolution related research. Topics that interest her are animal behavior, ecosystem functions, predator-prey relationships, evolution, and policy implications.
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Audrey is currently completing an independent study examining the costs of environmentally- derived Caballeronia isolates on insect host fitness.
Ava Virtuoso, Undergraduate
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Ava Virtuoso is an undergraduate Biological Sciences student at Florida State University with interests in ecology and conservation biology. She is particularly drawn to research that integrates multiple biological disciplines and explores how they affect each other, just as the Stoy lab does with ecology and microbiology. She hopes to pursue a career that applies ecological knowledge to inform sustainable policy and business practices.
Her current projects in the Stoy lab involve exploring the evolution of generalist symbiosis using population genetics. She does this by examining the genetic population structure of bacteria symbionts from natural environments.
Outside of academics, she enjoys spending time with her loved ones and doing crafts.