All Faculty Members List And Their Research Areas

Plant evolutionary ecology; geographic range limits and rarity; population dynamics and community structure.

Teaching & Learning.

My central goal in teaching is to help students become aware of the biological world around them, gain the knowledge of how it came to be and become interested and excited about preserving and learning from it.

Teaching & Learning

My goal as an instructor is to guide students to think like biologists and use a scientific approach to solve problems both within and outside of the classroom.  As an instructor in organismal diversity labs, I also strive to aid students in building observational skills as a habit of mind and to appreciate the biological diversity around them.

Ecology and evolutionary biology; the distribution of biodiversity and the challenges posed to its conservation through recent changes to the environment.

Genome evolution, spliceosomal intron evolution, parasitic adaptation - focusing on microsporidia, a highly derived group of parasitic fungi.

Plant Developmental Genetics. Molecular genetics of seed coat development in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Plant biochemistry, physiology and chemical ecology; molecular biology and enzymology of wax metabolism; chemical composition, physiological function and ecological roles of plant surface lipids.

Early eukaryote evolution, molecular phylogeny, protistology.

Molecular genetic and biochemical studies of seed lipid and epicuticular wax metabolism and their regulation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Teaching & Learning

Utilizing a combination of molecular genetics, biochemical and genomics approaches to understand the natural resistance mechanisms of plants against microbial pathogens including fungi, bacteria, and viruses.

Spider systematics and evolution.

Plant physiological ecology, macroecology, fire behavior and effects

Microbiome of coastal marine organisms; eukaryotes in the microbiome

Characterization of ER-PM contact site components involved in plant stress tolerance

Teaching & Learning, Molecular Biology, Plant Physiology.

The biology of viruses that infect marine phytoplankton and bacteria, and the role of these viruses in population dynamics and geochemical cycles.

We are fascinated with the natural world around us and how this world will look in the future, in light of ongoing habitat and climate change.  We study the evolutionary and ecological processes that help or hinder responses to changing environments.  We test ecological and evolutionary theory using laboratory and field experiments with aquatic plankton communities, insects, and parasites. 

Plant molecular systematic and evolution; the evolution of asexual polyploid complexes in higher plants.