My research integrates evolutionary biology, computational modeling, and phylogenetics to investigate how organismal traits diversify and evolve. A major thrust of my work involves the extraordinarily species-rich plant genus Impatiens, where I examine the divergence of morphological traits and the genomic underpinnings of speciation. I use phylogenomic, statistical, and trait-based data to build integrative models that explain diversity patterns and evolutionary dynamics. I am also interested in developing and refining mathematical models that describe how traits evolve—an effort that spans traditional evolutionary theory and modern computational tools. I have created software such as PhyloM, which infers relationships among taxa based on measured traits, offering a phenotypic complement to sequence-based phylogenetics. However, I now seek to move beyond distance-based inference toward mechanistic models of trait evolution—such as Brownian motion and Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes—that can ground observed trait divergence in biological processes. My long-term goal is to collaborate with systems modelers to better understand the evolutionary trajectories of measurable traits in organisms, using a synthesis of theory, empirical data, and simulation. OSyM represents an ideal community to foster these collaborations and to contribute to a broader understanding of trait evolution within an organismal systems framework.

I am a Professor in the Biomedical Sciences Program at Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ, with training in fisheries science, statistics, quantitative genetics, and computational biology. My career has consistently bridged organismal biology and modeling, both in research and teaching. I teach courses in Genetics, Statistics, Evolutionary Medicine, and Precision Medicine, and mentor graduate students on topics ranging from species delimitation to trait evolution. My research focuses on using analytical and computational tools to understand biological diversity through an evolutionary lens. Much of my work has centered on the plant genus Impatiens, where I investigate character evolution, trait divergence, and the genomic basis of speciation. My background enables me to develop tools that allow researchers to draw biological insight from complex data. For example, I developed PhyloM, a program that infers phenotypic trees from measurement or binary trait data, which has applications across many organismal systems. I also co-advise studies in vertebrate physiology, plant biodiversity, and microbial ecology—often contributing evolutionary or statistical modeling frameworks. Through this integrative approach, I aim to model how organism-level traits evolve and interact with genetic, developmental, and environmental systems, making me strongly aligned with OSyM’s mission to promote systems-based approaches to organismal biology.

Prior to graduate school most of my experience was in marine ecology, but while taking classes I became fascinated with biogeochemistry. Though I still consider myself an ecologist, my interests have broadened to encompass how ecological responses to environmental change modulate energy and resource flows in marine systems.
My dissertation research is on sediment responses to the diel oxygen cycle. Oxygen availability is a fundamental parameter that governs sediment function by driving the metabolism and behaviors of organisms inhabiting sediments. Though sediment systems have been well studied under steady-state oxygen conditions, both high and low, very little is known about how they respond to fluctuations in oxygen. Yet the diel oxygen cycle, in which oxygen peaks during the day due to photosynthesis then drops at night from respiration, is extremely common in the shallow marine systems that are critical sites of nutrient and organic matter cycling. The diel cycle affects both biogeochemical processes in sediments and the behavior and activity of sediment macrofauna that influence those processes, sometimes quite dramatically. We know that macrofaunal responses to hypoxia vary considerably among taxa, but how those behaviors change with fluctuating oxygen is almost entirely unknown. This is a major hole in our understanding of sediments’ role in coastal marine systems. The goal of my dissertation is to investigate how the diel cycle drives short-term change in behaviors and resulting sediment function, and whether it may influence estimates of diagenesis over the long term.

I graduated with a BS in Biology and a Marine Science minor from William and Mary in 2014, and began a marine science graduate program in 2015. I am now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Alabama at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab studying coastal sediment responses to the diel oxygen cycle.

Most of the research in my laboratory involves the evolution of complex traits. Through empirical, theoretical, and methodological studies, we are also helping to develop the field of evolutionary physiology (e.g., see Annual Review of Physiology [1994] 56:579-621; BioEssays [2021] 44:e2100167). Physiology is the study of how organisms work. Evolution is the study of how organisms have changed (genetically) across generations. Thus, evolutionary physiology is the study of how and why the way organisms work has changed over time. For example, does the way an organism work constrain the way it may evolve? Answers to such questions require a deep understanding of both proximate and ultimate mechanisms, including phenotypic plasticity and early-life effects. Accordingly, my graduate students come through the Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology Graduate Program in the Department of E.E.O. Biology, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, Genetics, Genomics & Bioinformatics Graduate Program, and the Graduate Program in Biomedical Sciences. As physiology cannot properly be understood in isolation from genetics, morphology, biochemistry, and behavior, my general approach is integrative and hence crosses traditional boundaries between disciplines.

Ph.D.: University of California, Riverside
Postdoctoral Research: University of Washington
Faculty: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Faculty: University of California, Riverside

I am an organismal biologist studying ecoimminology. Specifically, I study how cold temperatures affect physiological responses to infection with a bacterial pathogen. I would like to learn how to use these data to parameterize models predicting disease spread within populations in variable climates.

I am a third year graduate student at Virginia Tech pursuing my PhD.

I consider myself an integrative evolutionary ecologist. I'm interested in questions at the intersection of evolution, ecology, physiology, and behavior. I'm particularly interested in the ecological and evolutionary consequences of phenotypic plasticity, the role of phenotypic integration in constraining and facilitating adaptive evolution, trade-offs between physiological tolerance and biotic interactions, and the determinants of vulnerability to climate change. My lab works on fish, birds, insects, and amphibians depending on the question.

B.A. University of California, Los Angeles 1991
PhD University of Montana 1998
Post-doc University of California, Riverside 1999-2003
Assistant Professor, Colorado State University 2003-2009
Associate Professor, Colorado State University, 2009-2015
Professor, Colorado State University, 2015-present

I am an evolutionary physiologist. I am interested in how organisms interact with and adapt to their surroundings, on time scales from minutes to millenia. I have worked in a diversity of systems and habitats, from deep-sea fish to Drosophila, but the fundamental questions are the same: How do environmental variables affect organismal function, and how do populations and species evolve in response? I take a vertically integrated approach, drawing on techniques and ideas from evolution, physiological ecology, organismal biology, functional genomics, genetics and biophysics.

I grew up on the east coast of the US. In college I majored in chemistry while taking as many ecology courses as I could. I got my PhD from Scripps Institution of Oceanography working on deep-sea fish. I started working on insects as a post-doc at UC Davis. Since then I've had faculty positions at UCI, University of Arizona and UNLV.

Interested in bio-inspired robotic control and design, locomotion, computer vision, and autonomous navigation of unpredictable terrain

Currently working with Sawyer Fuller in the Autonomous Insect Robotics Laboratory at the University of Washington

My research interests are in environmental physiology. Specifically, uncovering and understanding the different physiological mechanisms of insects that allow them to live in hostile environments and whether these phylogenetically-constrained adaptations are sufficient for them to persist in a changing world.

Earned an associates degree (science) from Mesa Community College (2014), a bachelors degree (biological sciences: animal behavior and physiology) from Arizona State University (2016), a masters degree (biology) from the University of the Pacific (2018), and is currently working on a PhD (biology) in the lab of Dr. Jon Harrison (insect physiology) at Arizona State University (expected 2023).

My love of environmental physiology is linked to childhood hikes with his botanist grandpa, attending an Introductory Biology course taught by a passionate, enthusiastic community college professor, and participating in ASU’s Fundamentals of Tropical Biology study abroad program at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Gamboa, Panama as an undergraduate.