{"id":267,"date":"2018-01-18T12:32:02","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T17:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/?page_id=267"},"modified":"2026-01-28T17:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T22:07:10","slug":"people","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/people\/","title":{"rendered":"People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Principal Investigator<\/span><\/h1>\n

Justin Touchon<\/strong>
\nProfessor<\/strong>
\nBiology Department<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Prof. Touchon with an adorable leaf litter toad (Rhinella alata<\/em>) wrapped around his finger. Toads will try to mate with anything!<\/p><\/div>\n

I am a Professor of Biology at Vassar College. I started here in 2014. Previously, I was a postdoc at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama for 5 years and a graduate student at Boston University for 7 years (although most of that time was spent in Panama doing research). I love amphibians, plain and simple.<\/p>\n

\n

Current students<\/span><\/h1>\n

Current (2025\u20132026) students are Willa Davis (’27), Jamie Eu (’26), Adelaide Nyhan (’27), Diego Pastor-Valverde (’26), Abigail Posner ’26), Clara Rayburn (’26), and Miller Young (’28).<\/p>\n

\n

Former students<\/span><\/h1>\n

Marina Alfano<\/strong>\u00a0and Kali vom Eigen<\/strong> graduated in 2023. \u00a0Marina is working as an intern at NASA and Kali is working as a research assistant at Mass General Brigham hospital in Boston.<\/p>\n

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Marina (L) and Kali (R). Two more amazing seniors! Marina studied the effects of vitamin A on growth and bone ossification in pantless treefrog juveniles and Kali examined how quickly tadpoles exposed to predator cues could alter gene expression.<\/p><\/div>\n

Tori Armitage, Sedona Ryan, Katherine Nelson, Madeleine Stewart<\/strong>\u00a0and Cristy Cai<\/strong> all graduated in 2022.\u00a0 Tori is applying to graduate school and Sedona is doing her Masters at UNC Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n

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So many seniors! Madeleine (far L) and Cristy (mid L) studied the interaction between water mold, snails and wood frog eggs. Sedona (center) examined gene expression in 4-day old tadpoles exposed to predators, and Katherine (mid R) and Tori (far R) studied gene expression in 14 and 17 day old tadpoles exposed to predators. Great job everyone!<\/p><\/div>\n

Sadly there are no photos of my wonderful seniors from 2020 and 2021. Stupid COVID.\u00a0 Great job Dean Rosenthal, Ben Gregory, Theresa Waters, Parker Bartz, Sonia Gollerkeri, Asher Albrecht<\/strong>, and Claire Stutzman<\/strong>!\u00a0 You all were amazing.<\/p>\n

Megan Coughlan<\/strong>\u00a0and Nick Zuczek<\/strong> graduated in 2019. \u00a0Megan has been working in Madison, WI and is prepping for medical school. Nick is getting his Masters in Pharmacology at Georgetown University.<\/p>\n

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Megan (L) and Nick (R). Megan studied road salt and its effects on wood frog eggs and Nick studied pantless treefrog tadpoles.<\/p><\/div>\n

Jared Freedman<\/strong>, Annie Innes-Gold<\/strong> and Hubert Szczygiel<\/strong> graduated in 2018. \u00a0Jared is doing his PhD at Oregon State University and Annie is doing hers at the University of Hawaii.\u00a0 Hubert has been traveling the globe on a motorcycle.<\/p>\n

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Hubert (R), Annie and Jared (L) on graduation day 2018. It was so great to work with you all for so many years!<\/p><\/div>\n

Phoebe Reuben<\/strong> and Luana Deng\u00a0<\/strong>graduated in 2017. \u00a0My first seniors! \u00a0I was so proud of you both. Phoebe is doing her PhD at Tulane University and Luana is finishing vet school.<\/p>\n

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Phoebe (left) and Luana (right). My first seniors to graduate. You guys were the best and set the bar high!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Principal Investigator Justin Touchon Professor Biology Department I am a Professor of Biology at Vassar College. I started here in 2014. Previously, I was a postdoc at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama for 5 years and a graduate … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4777,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-267","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4777"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":427,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/267\/revisions\/427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/jutouchon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}