People

My research is broadly focused on the ecology and evolution of marine organisms. I am interested in understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes that drive biodiversity patterns in a rapidly changing environment at the genomic, population, and species-level. Evolutionary processes such as adaptation and speciation—the process by which new species arise—depend on the population's genetic makeup.  As climate change continues to accelerate, species' persistence will depend on their populations’ ability to adapt quickly to new demographic and environmental conditions. Recently, I obtained an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship to test the evolutionary theory of the accumulation of deleterious mutations in a rapid climate-driven range expansion and harvested marine fish, Black Sea Bass (Centropristis striata).