University of Montana Flight Lab

04/27/2019

It has been a great spring semester for the flight lab. Dr. Robert Niese successfully defended his PhD and Hila Chase passed their comprehensive exams, both in the past two weeks! Here's to a summer of productive research.

02/07/2019

Nest predation is a major source of avian mortality. During their recent visit to Tanzania as part of the Ecology of East Africa class, postdoctoral fellow Mark Mainwaring and undergraduate student Anna Kenney looked at strategies used by weaver birds to place their nests out of reach of predatory snakes:

Weaver birds build beautiful nests on the outer reaches of branches in the tree canopy. We hypothesize that they select these locations to protect their eggs...

06/13/2018

The American dippers are adjusting well to their new outdoor enclosure and expanded stream. PhD student Anthony Lapsansky is now placing a portion of their food in the water to keep the birds interested in swimming. The plan is to gradually increase the depth of the pool until the dippers are diving a few feet for each meal. That will provide plenty of space to study their aquatic locomotion using Particle Image Velocimetry and 3D videography in the coming months.

06/12/2018

And now for a change from bird research! PhD student Romain Boisseau and undergraduate Lexi Klawitter from the Emlen lab measure flight performance in leaf insects of the species Phyllium celebicum.

06/08/2018

PhD student Tony Lapsansky recently discovered the joys of fatherhood! For his research, Tony successfully raised 6 American dipper nestlings, a task that involved manual feeding every 45 minutes from 4:30am until 9pm, until they were able to feed themselves. Tony will be posting regular updates of the brood over the next months here and at https://twitter.com/PhysicksofLife!

06/08/2018

PhD student Tony Lapsansky's brood of American dippers

05/24/2018

It's that time of year again! George Fox University professor Don Powers is visiting the Flight Lab to collaborate with Dr Tobalske on hummingbird research. This year he's accompanied by undergraduate student Natalie Amodei, busy here recording data.
This morning the Lab also got the visit of Sentinel High School's Advanced Physics 2 class, with teacher Kelly Nelson.
Lots going on! Stay tuned for more exciting research coming out of the Lab this summer!

07/05/2017

Last week we were delighted to host a "Wings Over Water" training session with several local middle-school teachers. This was funded in collaboration with the Montana Natural History Center.

06/10/2017

Flight Lab postdoc Natalie Wright and visiting student Kyu Min Huh conduct "suburban field work" to study the effects of sexual dimorphism on hummingbird flight.

05/22/2017

Congratulations to the newest Flight Lab alumnus, Dr. Brett Klaassen van Oorschot! http://brettkvo.com/wp/

Brett Klaassen is a biomechanist studying aerodynamics at the University of Montana. He specializes in wing morphing, education, and crazy inventions.

05/22/2017

Congratulations to Flight Lab graduate student, Hila Tzipora Chase on her receipt of a National Science Foundation Fellowship: "Structural Approaches to the Evolution and Diversification of Bird Flight".

05/22/2017

Congratulations to Flight Lab graduate student, Anthony Lapsansky for receiving the Montana Space Grant Consortium's Graduate Fellowship for Fall 2017! http://spacegrant.montana.edu/Fellowship.html

MSGC's annual Scholarship and Fellowship Competitions are held each Spring for awards for the ensuing academic year. Awards are normally made to select students enrolled at MSGC campuses in disciplines related to Science, Math, Engineering, Technology or other areas of interest to NASA. The awards a...