Curator of Insects / Assistant Professor of Entomology
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Dr.
University of Alaska
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
email: dssikes 'at' alaska.edu
phone: 474-6278
fax: 474-5469

Sikes Lab Website

Derek Sikes was hired as the curator of insects at the University of Alaska Museum in July 2006. He is an advocate of the study and protection of arthropod, specifically beetle, biodiversity. His early training included large-scale beetle inventory and community ecology projects in addition to traditional alpha taxonomy and morphological based phylogenetics. He has since combined traditional with modern molecular phylogenetic approaches and has happily dived into the work of documenting the (non-marine) Arthropod fauna of Alaska.

UAM Insect Collection Graduate Student
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Dr.
University of Alaska
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
bfleshman2 'at' alaska.edu

EPSCoR Undergraduate Research Award, summer 2007 and Independent Research (1 term) student The Spider Fauna of Alaska. Summer 2007+. Brandi started the MS program in the spring of 2009 and in addition to finishing her work with updating the spider checklist for the state she is focusing on the spider fauna of Conservation Reserve Program lands in Delta Junction, Alaska, comparing spiders of older with younger plots.

Brandi began work in the UAM Insect lab as a volunteer auto-montage photographer. She has since begun work on updating the checklist of Alaskan spiders.

UAM Insect Collection Graduate Student
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Dr.
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775
jmstockbridge 'at' alaska.edu

Jill Stockbridge became interested in entomology in her last semester as an undergraduate in 2009 when she attended Dr. Derek Sikes' entomology course.  She worked as a lab technician in Dr. Sikes' lab for one year before pursuing a MS degree in Biology.  Jill's MS project consists of researching the effects of different forestry thinning practices on the biodiversity of beetles and spiders on Prince of Wales Island, Alaska.  She will also be providing a baseline inventory of the beetles and spiders on Prince of Wales Island, contributing to Alaska's growing invertebrate check-list.

UAM Insect Collection Graduate Student
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Dr.
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775

cebickford 'at' alaska.edu

Casey Bickford began her MS thesis research on Aegialites beetles Spring Semester 2012. She was a UAF undergraduate and lab and field technician for the UAM Insect Collection previously. She took Entomology in Spring Semester 2009. Her thesis research will focus on a new species of Aegialites beetle from the Aleutian volcano Kasatochi and attempt to determine if this species went extinct due to the catastrophic eruption of the volcano in 2008. She will also describe and name the species. Two other chapters of her thesis will focus on the species pair of Aegialites endemic to each of the Pribilof islands and examine the population genetics of Aegialites debilis from Sitka.

UAM Insect Collection Research Associate (1971-present)
1590 North Becker Ridge Road
Fairbanks, AK 99709-2705


Ken has been working on the butterfly fauna of Alaska and the circumpolar north since the 1966. Ken founded the Alaska Lepidoptera Survey in 1970 and has been running it ever since. The ALS collection is the second largest North American arctic butterfly collection in the world (behind the CNC). A field guide to the Alaskan butteflies is in progress. 

UAM Insect Collection Research Associate
USDA Forest Service
Forest Health Protection
3700 Airport Way
Fairbanks, Alaska  99709
Jkruse ‘at’ fs.fed.us
451-2701
http://www.fs.fed.us/r10/spf/fhp/

Jim was formerly the Curator of Entomology at UAM (2000-2003). Currently, Jim works as the Interior Alaska Forest Entomologist for the USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry, Forest Health Protection unit in Fairbanks, AK. He is trained in traditional taxonomy as well as morphological and molecular phylogenetics of the Lepidoptera. Current interests include all defoliating insects, particularly invasive and cyclical outbreak species, and especially the lepidopteran family Tortricidae.
 

UAM Insect Collection [former] Curatorial Assistant & Graduate Student
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Dr.
University of Alaska
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775

slowspider 'at' gmail.com 

Joey Slowik began work as a graduate student in the MS program in the Fall of 2008. He worked as a curatorial assistant in the Arachnid Collection under Dr. Paula Cushing of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science from 2004-2007. Joey's focus is on spider taxonomy, life history, faunistics, and phylogeny, specifically the spider families Linyphiidae and Lycosidae. Joey completed his MS degree on a species group in the genus Pardosa in the summer of 2011.

UAM Insect Collection Research Associate
University of Alaska Museum
907 Yukon Dr.
University of Alaska
Fairbanks, Alaska 99775

stevepeek 'at' att.net

Steve Peek has a MS degree in Aquatic Ecology and a passion for flies. He began volunteering in the insect collection identifying flies in 2009. During the summer 2011 he joined Sayde Ridling (undergraduate lab tech) on an expedition to sample insects on islands near Kasatochi volcano in the Aleutians.

Andrea Neighbors              May-Aug 2007
Brandi Fleshman               Jun 2007 - Mar 2010 (now a MS student)
Candice Flint                      Sep-Dec 2007
Katelyn McDonald             Apr-Jul 2008
Laura Lund                        May-Nov 2008
Carolene Coon                  May 2008 - May 2011
Tamara Sayre                   Jul-Dec 2008
Sayde Ridling                    May-Aug 2009; Jun 2010 - present
Jill Stockbridge                  May-2009 - Jun 2010 (now a MS student)
Kelly W. May                      May 2009 - Aug 2011
Casey Bickford                  Jan 2010 - Jan 2012 (now a MS student)
Cassidy Scholar                Jun - Oct 2010
Sarah Huguet                    Jun 2010 - Apr 2011
Whitney Junker                 Jun - Aug 2011
Sarah Meierotto                Apr - Aug 2011
Mary Wyatt                        Dec 2011 - present

Brandi Fleshman        Nov-Dec 2006 (now MS student)
Tommy Woolf             Dec 2006 - Mar 2007
Bethany Sweet           Mar-May 2007, May-Aug 2008
Candice Flint              Mar-Apr 2007
Kennan Jeannet         Apr-May 2007
Casey Reilly               May - Aug 2007
Katelyn McDonald      Oct 2007 - May 2008
Kevin Wakeman         Feb - Mar 2008
Melissa Deiman         Feb-Mar 2008
Holly Midkiff                Mar-May 2008
Kelly May                   Jul 2008 - May 2009
Tim Bouta                   Dec 2008
Sayde Ridling             Jan - Apr 2009
Steve Peek                Jan 2009 - present
Krystal Osborne         Nov 2009 - Apr 2010
Mary Wyatt                 Aug 2009 - Dec 2011
Genevieve Henry       Nov 2009 - Mar 2010
Jackson Drew            Feb - Apr 2010
Alexis Bystedt            Jun - Jul 2010
Kate Schroeder         Jan -Apr 2011
Brandon Emmett       Jan 2012 - present
Ian MacDougall         Feb 2012 - present