| Field of Study: | Ecological developmental biology |
| Title: | Professor |
| Degrees: | Ph.D. University of Virgina, M.S. Wake Forest University |
| Homepage: | Homepage/Lab Web Site Link |
| Google Scholar: |  Google Scholar |
| Office: | Eastlick 381 |
| Email: | erica.crespi@wsu.edu |
| Phone: | 509-335-3833 |
| Fax: | |
| Mailing Address: | School of Biological Sciences Washington State University PO Box 644236 Pullman,WA 99164-4236 |
My research seeks to understand how environmental stressors and nutrition affect early developmental processes in vertebrates. I focus on examining the ways in which the neuroendocrine stress axis and energy balance factors interact to regulate growth, morphogenesis, and immune function during early life stages. I am also interested in how these endocrine systems program later life behavior, physiology, growth, and reproduction through their organizing effects during early development.
I primarily use amphibian model systems to study environmental and maternal effects on developmental plasticity, but I also investigate similar questions in other vertebrates. I combine molecular, cellular, endocrine and behavioral approaches to understand these complex and interrelated responses in ecological and evolutionary contexts. I strive to apply our understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying short- and long-term stress responses to adverse environmental conditions to landscape-level processes relevant to questions in conservation biology. My multidisciplinary research program allows students to work on projects in the laboratory, in the field, or both.