Research

I think of myself as an evolutionary ecologist and population biologist. The truth is that I am generally interested in many questions in ecology, evolution and genetics. Almost all of my work is done in collaboration with some great colleagues and students. Recently, we have been investigating hybrid speciation in some butterflies. These projects are varied and include questions about the forces shaping variation in the genomes of the hybrid lineages as well as the parental lineages, the consequences of gene exchange, how switches to novel host plants occur, and how micro-organisms, in both the plants and the bugs, mediate interactions.  I am also interested in understanding the genetic basis of trait variation with an eye on questions about the evolution of novelty. I have also recently become very interested in statistical models for the analyses of genome-wide genetic variation. This has spilled over into other areas and I have recently been learning how to use hierarchical Bayesian models. I have used these models to examine patterns in long term ecological data, including an incredible 43 year (and still going) data set on butterflies in California collected by my PhD advisor, Art Shapiro. (You should check out his website: Art Shapiro’s Butterfly Site.) I also like beer.

Lab Website