Our Primate Environmental Endocrinology Lab (PEEL) explores how ecological interactions and global environmental change driven by human activity affect primates across tropical forests and other ecosystems globally. We study primates, including humans, around the world, including active projects in Uganda, Costa Rica, India, and Madagascar.
Current Projects
DISES: Understanding invisible socio-environmental systems through pesticide exposure across human-wildlife interactions in tropical forest-agricultural mosaics, funded by the National Science Foundation
Field Sites
Uganda: Kibale National Park
Most of our research takes place at Kibale National Park in western Uganda, a tropical forest where P.I. Wasserman has worked since 2003. Most of our work in Uganda is in collaboration with the Makerere University Biological Field Station.
Costa Rica: La Selva Biological Field Station
PEEL works at La Selva Biological Field Station and other field sites across Costa Rica in collaboration with the Organization for Tropical Studies.
India: Himalayan Langur Project
PhD Candidate, Elizabeth Coggeshall, and PhD student Diganta Mandal have begun PEEL research in the Himalayas of India. The Himalayan Langur Project’s central objectives are to investigate and conserve the rich, but overlooked, biodiversity and culture of the Indian Himalayas. Specifically, they focus on community work, the alloprimate species Semnopithecus schistaceus, and Himalayan ecology.
Prospective Students & Collaborations
Not accepting graduate students for 2024-2025
Contact: If you are interested in joining the lab as part of the PhD program, IRES, or as a postdoc, please email me at mdwasser@indiana.edu. For questions relating to the graduate school experience, please see the lab members page for graduate student contacts.
PhD Expectations: Graduate students and postdocs interested in joining PEEL will be expected to develop their own dissertation projects related to the general themes above and work with undergraduate students and international collaborators in both the lab and field. Potential field sites are open to discussion.
- PhD completion in PEEL is approximately 6 years. A built in masters is included in the program.
- Students have diverse and rigorous departmental coursework expectations to reach candidacy (60 credit hours), which typically takes 2-3 years.
- Teaching or fellowship funding is expected for all students.
Primate Environmental Endocrinology Laboratory 
