Beryl Jones 
Assistant Professor

Beryl is broadly interested in the role of phenotypic plasticity in shaping the evolution of novel traits. She is enamored with social insects, and uses a comparative approach to study the molecular underpinnings of social behaviors in bees. She received a B.S. from the University of Arizona before completing her Ph.D. in Dr. Gene Robinson’s lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studied mechanisms of reproductive plasticity in two bee species. Prior to joining the faculty at University of Kentucky, she did a postdoc with Sarah Kocher at Princeton University studying enhancer evolution. At UK, she studies wild bee pollinators with a combination of genomics and field-based studies.

Savanna Ploessl
MS Student

Savanna is interested in understanding nutrition, plasticity, and behavior and using a molecular approach to some of these questions. She is passionate about wild pollinator conservation and increasing awareness of this broad group of beneficials. She received her B.S. from Purdue University where she studied invertebrate diversity in community gardens in Dr. Laura Ingwell’s lab and partnered in writing policy documents for pollinator friendly solar with Dr. Brock Harpur. In the Jones lab, she is looking forward to exploring gene expression consequences of larval nutrition on development in sweat bees and searching for evidence of ancestral networks in queens and workers and whether losses of social behavior change these networks. 

Juliet (Jules) Stowe
​Undergraduate Researcher

Jules is a senior at University of Kentucky, majoring in biology and minoring in entomology. Their area of focus in the Jones lab revolves around comparing DNA extraction methods of bee specimens to determine which procedure best preserves their structural integrity. Jules Stowe also has experience working in the UK’s gross anatomy lab, dissecting cadavers for medical study, working in a macroecology ecology lab with an individual project revolving around the comparison of regional productivity to decomposer biodiversity richness, and undertaking extracurricular projects revolving around the long-term preserving of mammalian specimens. They are looking forward to graduating from undergraduate and pursuing a masters degree in forensic anthropology or entomology. 

Elijah Cruz Cardona
Lab Tech Senior

Cruz seeks to understand wild bee needs in urban and rural environments. He received a B.S. in Biology from Eastern Kentucky University where he studied stingless bee habitat preferences in Costa Rica under Dr. Valerie Peters. In the summer of 2023, he worked in Dr. Daniel Cariveau’s Lab at the University of Minnesota studying the effects of prescribed burns in restored prairies on native bees and plants. He is currently the Laboratory Technician Senior for the Jones lab, assisting students and faculty with their projects.