The Reed Lab does outreach and education, contributes to museum exhibits and media presentations about research projects, and students regularly do presentations on their works and public outreach.

Mentoring students

For the human-louse evolution project, Dr Ascunce mentored two undergraduate students: Jackie Fane and Gebreyes Kassu. Jackie has presented her work at two UF-meetings and she is currently a medical student at UF-Medical School. Gebreyes has presented his research at one international and four local meetings, and has submitted a manuscript to the Journal of Undergraduate Research at the University of Florida.

We submitted his nomination for an undergraduate student travel award of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) to participate in a Mentoring and Diversity Program during the past 2012 SMBE Conference in Dublin, Ireland. The award and subsequent trip made a great impact on his motivation to pursue scientific career. In addition, Gebreyes was awarded Best Oral presentation during the 2012 Undergraduate Research Symposium at the University of Florida Biology Department.