SEPL People

 Jenny McGuire

Jenny became an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech in August 2017. She uses both modern and paleontological specimens to identify how populations, species, and communities have responded to past climate change. Her goal is to identify strategies to conserve as much biodiversity as possible given rapidly shifting climates. She received her PhD from the Dept. of Integrative Biology at UC-Berkeley, and did postdoctoral research at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and at the University of Washington.

Claire Williams

Claire joined SEPL and Dr. Michelle Lawing’s lab at Texas A&M University in January 2026. She is working on the ecometric projects to potentially determine the trait-environment relationships of coral species. She is particularly interested in how trait-environmental relationships are altered by climate changes and extinction, and what this means for the functional ecology of ecosystems in the future. She received her Ph.D. in Geology from the University of Texas in Austin in December 2025, where she utilized conservation paleobiology and ecological niche modeling to assist the East Portland Special Fishery Conservation area, a marine sanctuary in northeastern Jamaica.

Katherine Slenker

Ankit Raj

Sierra Bornheim