Social and academic events

Lab members, Paige Cherry and Eleanor Tuck graduated this past week with their bachelor degrees. This is a huge accomplishment and we are so proud of our team members, congratulations!

Dr. Román-Palacios was named 'Afro-Colombian' of the Year by the oldest newspaper in Colombia and Fundacion Color de Colombia. Dr. Román-Palacios gave a brief speech, in Spanish. You can check out the whole event in the link below.

Danielle Van Boxel (pictured in the very back left-hand corner) attended the Arizona Women's Symposium in Mathematics in Flagstaff, AZ. Danielle was a featured speaker in the conference and was also a research poster presenter. The AWSiM provides a forum for women to share information about their projects with each other and with community members.

The DDL was part of a grant project to secure funds for an ecological and biological representation of a unified landscape for terraformation and habitability. This grant was recently funded. We are so excited to be a part of this project and want to extend congratulations to not only our involved lab members, but everyone else involved!

Members, Cristian, Delaney, Kiran, and Kristen joined in on a hike this past Saturday evening!

Kristen Martinet (front row, left), Postdoc in our lab celebrated the Halloween Holiday by dressing up and getting together for the College of Information Science Halloween party.

A lab dinner was organized in Fall 2023 at Churrasco de Brasil, Tucson, AZ. In attendance are lab members from left to right: Daniela Valladolid, Cristian Román, Danielle Van Boxel, Yi Chien Lee, and Hector Garcia.

Our PI, Cristian was asked to give a talk at the incredible Charles Darwin Foundation regarding macroevolution.

Our PI, Cristian was invited to present by Dr. Ole Seehausen for a lecture series on Aquatic Ecology and Evolution. Congrats Cristian!

Cristian received a deserving recognition for his work at the University of Arizona!

The Data Diversity Lab had the honor to have selected members present talks at the 2025 Evolution Conference Conference. Kiran Basava presented her talk "Mapping animal cultures with the Animal Culture Database (ACDB)", Kristen Martinet presented her talk, "Adaptive radiations share similar species- and speciation-area relationships within island systems”, Delaney Scott-Martin presented her talk, "Comparative sister taxa approaches to understanding climate-related animal extinctions”, and last but not least, Cristian Román-Palacios presented his talk, "Lab Operations (LabOps) for computational research group in Ecology and Evolution”. Congratulations to all!

A few of our lab members were able to attend a College of Information Science mixer full of great conversation and company.

A small game evening in the lab! Pizza, cinnamon dessert, games and fun was had!

While attending the Evolution conference in Athens, Georgia, lab members including Kristen (2nd from left), Delaney (3rd from left), and Cristian (3rd from right), went for a bonding team lunch within their busy conference schedule.

Lab members Kiran, Cristian, Kristen, and Eleanor went for lunch during the work day for a little team bonding!

Dr. Román-Palacios have a brief talk to high schoolers on his career path, research etc. In Spanish. Available to view below.

Dr. Kristen Martinet and Dr. Kiran Basava (postdocs at the lab) presented their research at the 6th annual Arizona Postdoctoral Research Conference. Dr. Martinet was selected as one of two Best Poster Presentation awardees. Congrats to both Kristen and Kiran for presenting!

Erika Kirkpatrick (front row, first on the left), MS in Data Science (capstone/VIP student in our lab), was awarded the Fall 2024 Graduate Teaching Award in the College of Information Science (UArizona). Congrats Erika!!

Dr. Román-Palacios attended and presented in the iSchool's Spring 2024 Faculty Research Blitz. The Blitz is a fast-paced series of presentations on the latest information-related research, apps publications and more.

Yi Chien Lee (pictured) was in attendance of the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing in Orlando, Florida. GHC aims to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Career fairs, sessions and poster presentations were all main parts of the event.

Jhan proudly presented his first-ever poster at a conference during SICB 2025 (the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology), showcasing his research on physiological specialization in Anolis lizards across elevations in the Andes. The poster highlighted how thermal limits drive adaptive radiation and endemism in these Andean tropical lizards. He had the opportunity to engage with attendees, answer questions, and discuss the broader implications of his work. Jhan is grateful for the insightful conversations and the chance to share his passion for understanding evolutionary patterns in these fascinating reptiles.

Dr. Román-Palacios was the keynote speaker at the 2023 Simposio Estudiantil at INECOL (Xalapa, Mexico) for the Climate Change component of the event. In the photo, organizers and two speakers.

Paige Cherry, Undergraduate student in the lab, represented the college of Information Science at a special meeting hosted by the Arizona Board of Regents. In her poster, Paige discussed a her perspectives a personal pipeline and representation in the information science world. She also got to highlight the progress her assisting Dr. Kiran Basava. Congrats Paige!!

Ani Chitransh (pictured) presented her MSc capstone research project at the iSchool's iShowcase event at the Marriot in the UA campus.

HM Abdul (pictured) presented his MSc capstone research project at the iSchool's iShowcase event at the Marriot in the UA campus.

Danielle Van Boxel (pictured) presenting her research at the iSchool's iShowcase event at the Marriot in the UA campus (Tucson, AZ). The iShowcase focuses on presenting interactive research and creative projects by iSchool's students.

Sara Cielaszyk, Hubert Kasprzycki, Eleanor Tuck and Paige Cherry focused their capstone project on the macroevolution of Galápagos Testudinids. They created a website and performed basic macroevolutionary analyses on recently published time-calibrated phylogenies! Swetha Kolloju also presented her capstone project (advised by Cristian Román and Sarah Bratt) on describing the structure of software use in phylogenetics. Congratulations to all, we love to recognize your hard work!

Attending the rainbow graduation at UA, Dr. Román hoods Dr. Van Boxel. The rainbow graduation celebrates and provides personal recognition for the achievements of LGBTQ+ students at the University of Arizona.

Attendees at the lab dinner organized in Fall 2022 at La Indita, Tucson, AZ. You will be able to recognize a handful of lab members (Danielle Van Boxel [from the left, second], Salena Torres [third], Cristian Román [fifth], Kyle Arechiga [seventh], Kyle Clemments [eight]), some of us with our significant others!

Her poster surrounded the historical biogeography of recently extinct animals. Congrats Delaney!

A few of our members were able to get together for some team bonding with a hike amongst the incredible environment of Tumamoc Hill located right in Tucson. From left to right, Kristen Martinet, Kiran Basava, Cristian Roman, Michael Nafis, Hector Garcia.

A few members of our lab joined together to take their lunch break for fun and conversation. From left to right, Kiran Basava, Kristen Martinet, Cristian Roman, and Yichao Zeng.

Available lab members joined in an Italian cuisine dinner at Locale Italiano, it was a great time with even better food (and desserts!). From left to right, Kiran Basava, Kristen Martinet, Paige Cherry, Kennedy Gezella, Cristian Roman, Ian Estacio, Yichao Zeng.

The iSchool organized a lab warming party get together at the end of the spring 2024 semester. Collaborators, iSchool staff, lab members friends and family all attended the event. We are thankful for everyone's efforts and warm welcome of the Data Diversity Lab ! :)

Dr. Román-Palacios was interviewed very briefly by Dr. Katrina Mangin. In this podcast, he speaks about some of his research and touch upon some general and personal advice on science and academia.

Cristian Román-Palacios, our labs PI, and lab members, Kiran Basava, Kristen Martinet, Yichao Zeng, and Ian Estacio, shared current research on the Animal culture database and conservation implications, consistency in breakpoints for species/area relationships, modeling speciation in co-phylogenies, and a NAS-based Collaboratory at the weekly CAMBIUM meeting.

WISE, the Women in Science and Engineering program granted an opportunity for Cristian, our PI, and Kiran and Kristen our Postdocs to speak to UA undergrads. The program hosts one hour weekly meetings for development opportunities, one in which took place November 21, 2024, which was attended by mentioned members of the lab. In the above image, Kristen Martinet is sharing her expertise in the biodiversity and data science subject!

In order to properly celebrate being awarded our National Geographic Grant, our lab members indulged in a NatGeo themed cake. From left to right, Kristen Martinet, Eleanor Tuck, Cristian Roman.

Dr. Román-Palacios attended the Urban Eco-Evol and Nature-based solution workshop hosted by Dr. Marina Alberti at the University of Washington

Paige is assisting on a comparative database of animal culture and behavior. Her poster consisted of a highlight of two selected papers on animal culture, focusing on their findings about animal behavior, social learning, and culturally significant actions. While presenting, Paige explains the authors' methods and how their work connects to the broader project. The ultimate goal is to create an open-access resource that combines data on animal cultures with existing ecological databases to enhance research and accessibility.

Dr. Román-Palacios presented his research on polyploidy at the Polyploidy webinar organized by Michael S. Barker. View this using the link below.

Kristen gave a talk covering the functionality of her R package SSARP (Species-/Speciation-Area Relationship Projector) at the SICB (Society for Integrative & Comparative Biology) conference in January 2025.

Dr. Román-Palacios help put together a fraction of the slides and discussion + recording on Biology, particularly focused on how to understand phylogenetic trees. In Spanish. You can view this using the link below.

Each week our team members partake in a collaborative lab meeting on various topics. Here are some recent images from the meetings!

Dr. Román-Palacios presented BarrioMap along with Mackenzie Waller (Assistant Professor, University of Arizona) and Ariana Cantu (Assistant Professor, University of Washington)

Jiayue He (pictured 3rd from the left) attended the 2024 Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration conference. The SME Annual Conference & Expo is widely recognized as the most distinguished forum for the publication of multidisciplinary mining research.

One of our lab members (Shih-Hsuan Lo) took professional level headshots and group photos for the Data Diversity Lab team of Spring 2024! Left to right. Front row: Tanisha Lochab, Ani Chitransh, Jiayue He, HM Abdul Fattah. Top row: Cristian Roman, Danielle Van Boxel, Hector Garcial, Shih-Hsuan Lo.

Dr. Wiens and Dr. Román-Palacios discuss our climate change paper with folks at the Climate Pod. '...Then, we are joined by the University of Arizona's Dr. John J. Wiens and Cristian Román-Palacios, who recently published a study that made headlines for its analysis on the potential extinction crisis looming if warming temperatures continue. They explain the major drivers behind extinction patterns and where plant and animal most likely to occur. View this podcast below.

Dr. Roman was a featured speaker for the 2024 NSURP cohort. The NSURP is a community-driven initiative that creates rewarding, remote summer research experiences for underrepresented minoritized undergraduate students in Microbiology, Immunology, Cancer Biology, and Biomedical Engineering.

Dr. Román-Palacios presented at UCLA's Geocheminar seminar on Thursday Jan 23, 2025. His talk, “Integrating Bayesian, machine learning, and collaborative computing methods for geochemistry and other applications”, focused on discussing Hector Garcia's contributions to LabOPS, Dr. Van Boxel (BARN), Ani Chitransh (Bayesian regressions in python) , as well as his own work related on clumped isotope datasets.

Our PI, Cristian attended the UN-COP16 in Colombia along with Dr. Rachel Gallery and Dr. Jessie Golding from the University of Arizona. You can read more about the experience using the link below.

Dr. Román-Palacios gave a talk on his PhD research at Universidad del Quindío, Colombia.

Dr. Román-Palacios gave a talk on his PhD research at Universidad del Valle, Colombia.

Dr. Román-Palacios gave a talk on his PhD research at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Colombia. View this talk using the link below.

Multiple lab members were able to present at the Women in Data Science Conference about a variety of projects and ideas. Congratulations all!

Dr. Román-Palacios presented along with members of Esperanza Community Housing on 'GIS and community health'.