The Flanagan Lab

The Flanagan Lab

Dr. Sarah Flanagan is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Canterbury. The lab is focused on understanding the evolution of complex, multivariate traits (such as mating display traits), primarily relying on population and quantitative genetics, genomic datasets, simulation modeling.

Lab Alumni

Masters students at University of Canterbury

Ruby O’Neill

Ruby O’Neill submitted her masters thesis in August 2023. Her thesis focussed on New Zealand pipefish (Stigmatopora macropterygia) and differential gene expression between males and females.




Lucy Howell

Lucy completed her Masters in Antarctic Studies, working with Sarah and Michelle LaRue. Lucy is now a Aho Hīnātore/Accelerator Scholarship PhD student with Tammy Steeves.




Fleur van Eyndhoven

Fleur completed her Master of Science with Sarah in 2022, looking at sexual selection in the wide-bodied pipefish, Stigmatopora nigra. She is interested in animal behaviour and how individuals interact with each other.

Micaela Pullen

Micaela completed her masters of science with Sarah in 2021, working on monitoring a population of pipefish that reside in seagrass beds in Duvauchelle Bay. More generally, she is interested in how organisms influence each other and the environment around them.




Honours students at University of Canterbury

Analese Fon

Analese is a student currently working towards a Bachelor of Environmental Science majoring in Ecosystem Health and Biosecurity at the University of Canterbury. Her honours research project aims to investigate the use of drones as a non-invasive monitoring tool to understand the behaviours of endangered humpback whales (Megaptera noaeangliae). Co-supervised by Sarah Flanagan and Travis Horton, Analese’s research interests are animal behaviour and conservation biology.

Summer scholarship students at University of Canterbury

Jude van Houtte

Jude is an undergraduate student working towards her BSc, majoring in Biological Science. She worked as a summer research student in 2021-2022, where in collaboration with Emily Beasley studying sexual selection and behaviour in sex-role-reversed pipefish. She is interested in conservation, ethology, and evolution, as well as mātauranga Māori and the connection between science and people.

Other summer students

2022-2023: Georgia Gwatkin and Alexandra Strang worked with Sarah and Michelle LaRue in a collaborative project with Pōhatu Penguins, conducting conservation monitoring of kororā and performing a literature review on research conducted in Akaroa Harbour.

2019-2020: Averill Moser-Rust worked with Mads Thomsen, Micaela Pullen, Derek Gerber, and Sarah, investigating the community of fishes in two seagrass beds in the Canterbury region in New Zealand.

2018-2019: Chavvah Freeman worked with Sarah, studying the evolution of pigmentation genes in pipefish.

NIMBioS SRE 2017

Dr. Flanagan co-supervised four undergraduate students with Dr. Nourridine Siewe at NIMBioS during the Summer Research Experience program in 2017. The group included Sharee Brewer (Fisk University), Kimberly Dautel (Marist College), Alan Liang (Cornell University), and Brian Lerch (Case Western Reserve University), and we have publisehd the results of our summer working together!