Welcome to the Miller Lab!
Recent lab news:


  • August 2018: Ummat graduated with his Ph.D. and has moved on to a a prestigious three-year postdoctoral position in Panama through the Smithsonian Institute called the Earl S. Tupper Fellowship. Learn more about Ummat's graduate field work here.
  • August 2018: Five members of the Miller Lab, Dr. Ginny Greenway, Dr. Ummat Somjee, Dr. Christine Miller, Zachary Emberts, and Dr. Pablo Allen traveled to Minneapolis, Minnesota to present their research at the 2018 International Society for Behavioral Ecology conferenc.
  • July 2018: Undergraduate Researcher, Daniela Gomez has received the Turner Award from the Animal Behavior Society. 
  • May 2018: One of our recent papers was selected for recognition at the 11th Annual University of Florida IFAS FAES Research Awards Ceremony on Thursday, May 17th.
  • May 2018: Christine presented a seminar at the University of Cambridge as part of their Zoology Lecture Series.
  • April 2018: Christine leaves for a Visiting Fellow position at Sidney Sussex College at the University of Cambridge, U.K. 
  • March 2018: Ummat has defended his dissertation! Dr. Somjee will begin a 3-year Tupper Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in the fall of 2018. 
  • February 2018: Daniela and Michael returned from a successful insect collecting trip in Southern Africa. You can learn about their journey here.
  • January 2018: We presented three talks at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology's annual meeting in San Francisco, CA
  • January 2018: Christine received the Undergraduate Teacher of the Year Award in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at UF. 
  • December 2017: Disarmed, but not impotent, blog post by Willy van Strien
  • November 2017: Two papers just out showing evidence of trade-offs between traits used to gain access to mates (armaments) and traits used in fertilization (testes). (1) Males that drop a sexually selected weapon grow larger testes (2) Experimental manipulation reveals a trade-off between weapons and testes.
  • November 2017: Christine received the 2017 National New Teacher Award for Excellence in College and University Teaching from the U.S.D.A. The award was presented at a ceremony in Washington D.C. 
  • November 2017: Christine received a Learning Without Borders Curriculum Internationalization Award from the University of Florida.
  • October 2017: We are invested in Classroom Undergraduate Research Experiences. (CURE)  In this case, we use a CURE course to teach undergraduates excellence in science communication. 
  • September 2017: Dr. Ginny Greenway has joined us as a postdoctoral researcher. Ginny completed her Ph.D. at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
  • August 2017: Daniela Wilner has joined us for the M.S. program. 
  • August 2017: Ummat Somjee attended a sexual selection workshop in the Swiss Alps.
  • August 2017: Male weapons become greatly reduced when insects feed on a new host plant. Just published! Check out the press release.​
  • August 2017: Congratulations, Pablo, in completing your Ph.D. and graduating from UF.
  • June 2017: Pablo Allen (ambitiously) presented two talks at the Evolution Conference in Portland, Oregon, including a short symposium talk.
  • June 2017: Daniela Wilner attended the Evolutionary Biology Workshop in the Alps.
  • June 2017: Ummat Somjee and Lauren Cirino traveled to Toronto, Canada to speak at the Animal Behavior Society (ABS) Conference. 
  • May 2017: Christine has accepted a Visiting Fellowship from Cambridge University, UK and will be there for the Easter Term of 2018.
  • April 2017: Published online: Self-amputation of injured limbs increases survival
  • April 2017:  Published: Multiple male morphs in the leaf-footed bug Mictis longicornis (Hemiptera: Coreidae). 
  • March 2017: Pablo successfully defended his dissertation. Go Pablo!
  • March 2017: Christine received a three-year Term Professorship Award from the University of Florida. 
  • March 2017: Fabulous posters at the UF Undergraduate Research Symposium. Miller Lab students presenting included Cecilia Lundberg, Quentin Cui, Paige Carlson, and Itai Meirom.
  • February 2017: Zach Nolen's undergraduate research project on male-male competition has been published by the journal Behavioural Processes. We discovered that male bugs compete more often and longer on higher quality territories.
  • February 2017: Ph.D. Candidate Zachary Emberts has won the Department of Biology Graduate Student Mentoring Award at UF. This award honors a graduate student who, over the past year, was an extraordinary mentor to undergraduate researchers. 
  • January 2017: Pablo, Lauren, Paul, Zach, and Ummat all presented talks at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology meeting in New Orleans, LA. 
  • January 2017: Our paper on Narnia femorata in the wild is now published.
  • December 2016: Seven lab members traveled to Washington D.C. for the AIBS bootcamp in science communication.
  • November 2016: National Geographic has made a video about our research and our terrific study subjects.
  • November 2016: Watch the video about our new series of undergraduate research courses! Paul Joseph put this together (thanks Paul!)
  • November 2016: Zach Embert's received the UF Research Abroad for Graduate Students Award that will take him to the University of Western Australia next year. 
  • October 2016: Our paper on coreid autotomy is described in this month's issue of "Outside JEB" 
  • September 2016: National Science Foundation's Science Nation has just released a video on our work
  • September 2016: Ever wonder why sexually-selected weapons are not ornaments? Our paper is now published on the topic in TREE, and we got the cover! PDF
  • There were a lot of great accomplishments this summer:
    • We had three papers published just over the summer. Check out the publications link. ​
    • Lauren Cirino, Paul N. Joseph, and Ummat Somjee presented talks at the 53rd Annual Conference of the Animal Behavior Society in Columbia, MO. 
    • Pablo Allen presented a talk at the Evolution Conference in Austin, Tx. 
    • Pablo Allen and Undergraduate Researcher Quentin Cui went on an expedition to sample coreids across the desert southwest.
    • Ummat Somjee worked at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama with Rachel Watson and Rebecca Perry, recipients of the UF/IFAS research internship for undergraduates.
    • Zach Emberts went to Singapore through the National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes.  
    • Lauren Cirino successfully defended her M.S. thesis.
    • Marsha Walton and David Waters were here to produce a video on our research for Science Nation. 
    • Christine Miller (co-PI) received a grant together with Drs. Adam Dale (PI) and Anne Donnelly (co-PI) through the USDA NIFA Women and Minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Fields Program (WAMS). Their project will combine classroom research experiences and extension activities to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities from rural areas in science, technology, and mathematics. 
  • April 2016: Published! Sasson, Munoz, Gezan, and Miller. Resource quality affects weapon and testis size and the ability of these traits to respond to selection in the leaf-footed cactus bug, Narnia femorata.
  • April 2016: We are thrilled to have Leigh Simmons visiting us for a couple of days.
  • April 2016: Michael Forthman joined our research group as a Postdoctoral Associate. Welcome, Michael.
  • March 2016: Ummat Somjee won the Rosemary Grant award from the Society for the Study of Evolution. He will use it to fund his research at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama this summer. 
  • March 2016: Undergraduates Rebecca Perry and Rachel Watson received UF/IFAS internships that will take them to Panama to work at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute with Ummat Somjee. 
  • March 2016: Many great undergraduate presentations this month at both the SEEC conference and the UF Undergraduate Research Symposium. Great job Danny Kiehl, Paige Carlson, Itai Meirom, Grayson McWhorter, and Tyler Herrington. We are proud of your accomplishments!
  • March 2016: Paige Carlson, Itai Meirom, and Quentin Cui have all been accepted into the 2016 UF University Scholars Program! Paige and Itai will be working with Ph.D. Candidate Zach Emberts, while Quentin Cui will be working with Ph.D. Candidate Pablo Allen. 
  • March 2016: Zach Emberts, Ph.D. candidate, was accepted to participate in the National Science Foundation East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) program for Summer 2016. He will be heading to Singapore to work with Daiquin Li. 
  • February 2016: Paul successfully defended his masters thesis.
  • February 2016: Lauren has received a UF Graduate Fellowship and will continue on in the lab as a Ph.D. student this fall. 
  • January 2016: Daniel Sasson's paper was accepted by Ecology & Evolution. 
  • January 2016: We are getting some press about the National Science Foundation CAREER award. UF News, UF Alligator grant story, UF Alligator CURE course story.
  • December 2015: Ummat is off to Singapore to work with Daiquin Li, then to Australia to work with Leigh Simmons and Nik Tatarnic
  • December 2015: Lauren received a Sigma Xi Grant in Aid of Research
  • December 2015: We are hiring! A NSF-funded postdoctoral position is expected to come available March 1, 2016. Please send in your application by December 15th, if possible. Please note: this position has now been filled.
  • December 2015: Zach Emberts successfully defended his dissertation proposal today. 
  • December 2015: Dr. Miller's proposal to the National Science Foundation has been recommended for funding. This is a five-year NSF CAREER award that involves research on animal weapons and the integration of research with undergraduate education.
  • November 2015: Ummat received a University of Florida Research Abroad for Graduate Students grant that will allow him to conduct research in Australia for more than 3 months in 2016.
  • November 2015: Dr. Miller has received the honor of being denoted a UF Global Fellow 2015-2016. 
  • October 2015: The manuscript "Sexual selection in complex environments" has been designated a "hot paper" by the Web of Science. "This hot paper was published in the past two years and received enough citations in May/June 2015 to place it in the top 0.1% of papers in its academic field."
  • October 2015: Pablo has submitted the first chapter of his dissertation to a peer-reviewed journal! Great job, Pablo.
  • October 2015: Visit my new blog where I will discuss everything from our lab's research to insect eating and other exciting buggy topics.
  • September 2015: Zach Emberts, Ph.D. student, has been making short videos of the research that is taking place in the lab. Check the research page to see what he has done. Thanks, Zach! In this video, lab undergraduate Paige Carlson explains her research from last summer.
  • August 2015: Dr. Miller traveled to Cairns, Australia for the Behaviour 2015 meeting where she gave an invited talk on reproductive interference. After the conference, she drove (on the left side of the road!) to the Daintree Rainforest Observatory to do reconnaissance for teaching and research.  
  • August 2015: Zach, Lauren, Paul, Pablo, and Dr. Miller taught a new class on the nature of science. This CURE course involved undergraduates  in the process, context, and communication of science. It was fun and challenging for all involved.
  • June 2015: Ummat has returned from field work in Kenya, and he is now headed for fieldwork in Panama.
  • June 2015: Two high school students have joined the lab for the summer. Welcome Brandon and Priya!
  • May 2015: Discover Magazine's Inkfish Blog covered our recent publication.
  • May 2015: Ummat Somjee has passed his qualifying exams and has advanced to candidacy
  • April 2015: Zach Emberts received a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research
  • April 2015: Now available online: Our paper on testes and weapons expression in natural environments AND our paper on reproductive interference. Great job Ummat, Pablo, Jen, and Savannah!
  • April 2015: Tyler Herrington has received the UF HHMI Science for Life Intramural Award to conduct an intense year of undergraduate research in the lab.
  • April 2015: Ummat received a grant from the Tropical Conservation and Development program at UF. He will be conducting field work in Panama and Kenya this summer.


The Miller Lab is in the Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida/IFAS in Gainesville. 



UF Entomology and Nematology