Photo Credit: michael Runtz
news: Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Our comment on hybrid origins of eastern and red wolves was published today in Science Advances. Read it here.
About MeI am excited to announce that as of July 1, 2016 I have been appointed as a Adjunct Professor in the Environmental & Life Sciences Graduate Department at Trent University, where I am also a Research Associate in the Biology Department. This post comes after an exciting year as part of the vonHoldt lab in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University in New Jersey where I worked on mammalian genomics, primarily wolves and coyotes (Canis spp.), and also started investigations into the genetic and epigenetic factors influencing possible reproductive incompatibility in wildlife. The research with colleagues at Princeton University is ongoing as I venture into new research projects and collaborations at Trent University.
I am interested in how hybridization and environmental factors, including human influences, alter evolutionary trajectories and lead to contemporary evolution of species. To that end, my research focuses on genomic ancestry and identifying functional genes that are responsible for local adaptation and improved fitness, particularly for species at risk. Furthermore, I am interested in understanding how epigenetic variation contributes to evolutionary processes. Much of my work is on Canis species and in particular Eastern Wolves (Canis lycaon), a threatened species in Canada. I am also the lead researcher for the Eastern Wolf Survey, a research project focussed on non-invasively tracking Eastern Wolves in southern Ontario's Provincial Parks. |
