Bio
I’ve left academia to work full time on the startup I cofounded. I’m really interested in how the environment and the genome interact to create interesting and/or adaptive phenotypes. In particular, I’m fascinated with how plasticity across time, space, and scale can influence adaptive dynamics and evolutionary trajectories. To address this question, I’ve used genomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics, and new computational methods to identify the loci and epialleles that are responsible for generating plastic traits. I'm also broadly interested in the intersection of biology, informatics, and society, and I love finding the applications of my work to issues in climate change and sustainable agriculture.
RESearch
Plasticity and evolution
Organisms can respond to environmental cues, sometimes across generations. We’ve found genetic variation in the ability to express this response, and we’re currently genomic and epigenomic approaches to understand the induction, persistence, and stability of transgenerational effects. Our goal is to detect signatures of selection on transgenerational effects in nature.
Selection and plasticity in the wild
Selection can act on phenotypic plasticity to create interesting patterns of variation in nature. I’m interested in the relationship between these processes during local adaptation. To that end, I’m looking at genetic and epigenetic variation to figure out their roles in shaping gene expression patterns across environmental clines. In addition to model organisms, I’m taking advantage of natural and invasive populations of plants without reference genomes or previous genomic resources to do this, which is both challenging and rewarding.
Statistical and machine learning approaches genomic problems
Associating loci with environmental conditions is challenging, particularly given population structure, cell-type heterogeneity, and other latent effects. I’m interested in using machine learning techniques to build fast, scalable, and accurate models that can identify associated variants without picking up false positives.
Outreach
Talking to people is one of my favorite parts about being in academia. Here are a few outreach events that I've participated in.
Females Excelling More in Math, Engineering, and Science
The FEMMES program connects undergraduate, graduate, and postdoc mentors with young women (4th-6th grade) to share hands-on experience in STEM research. The elementary students seem to have a few things to teach the mentors, too!
USF Darwin Day
USF's annual Darwin Day celebration is an outreach to both public school students as well as educators. The University also hosts public seminars by an invited speaker. This event is always a huge hit (and not just because of all the pizza).
USF HHMI STEM ACADEMY
USF’s office of Undergraduate Research puts on a one week intensive camp for incoming freshmen interesting in STEM careers. Our STEM academy graduates have gone on to be amazing students and great undergraduate researchers!