Faculty Research

Nathan Ahlgren is interested in understanding how environmental factors and interactions between microbes and viruses shape the evolution, diversity, and structure of microbial communities. Marine microbial communities are extremely diverse and control globally important cycles in the flow of nutrients and carbon on our planet. A fundamental component to understanding their importance to our planet is knowing what factors control and maintain the diversity and structure of these communities.

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How the phenotype influences an organism’s function, and how this influences its ecology, is of key importance to understanding the diversity of organisms that have evolved. Philip Bergmann’s laboratory studies how phenotype relates to organismal function and ecology, with a particular focus on locomotion in reptiles and amphibians. The lab integrates data from fieldwork, high-speed video, x-ray video, force plates to understand these relationships at the organismal level, both intraspecifically and in a phylogenetic context.

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Robert Drewell’s laboratory is investigating the molecular mechanisms of gene regulation during development using genomic and synthetic biology, with computational and mathematical approaches. Much of his lab’s work is focused on using insect model species, including Drosophila and social insects, to analyze the epigenetic and regulatory networks that control gene expression in the embryo.

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Fungi play critical ecological roles as decayers, pathogens, and mutualists. Fungi also represent an independent origin of multicellularity within eukaryotes, including complex forms such as mushrooms and puffballs. David Hibbett‘s laboratory uses phylogenetic and phylogenomic approaches, coupled with fieldwork and anatomical and cultural studies, to understand the patterns and mechanisms of morphological and ecological diversification in mushroom-forming fungi.

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The Jack lab is interested in exploring how microbial population dynamics and functional diversity are as important in shaping the plant microbiome as host genetic identity and environmental conditions. We look at functional traits in different species of clover and how synthetic microbiomes may implact cereal crops. Our research approaches include field work and greenhouse studies with applications ranging from increasing fundamental understanding of plant microbial mutualisms to sustainable agriculture.

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Denis Larochelle and his lab group study the mechanisms and regulation of cell division. They take advantage of the molecular/genetic tractability of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum to identify and characterize proteins that play important roles related to this.

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Kaitlyn Mathis uses an integrated approach by combining observational studies, manipulative field experiments, chemical ecology techniques, and lab experiments to examine the dynamics of complex species interactions and how they impact managed systems.

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Much of the diversity among animals is related to sex. Individuals invest an incredible amount of time and energy into fighting for access to mates or gaining the attention of attention of mates. Erin McCullough’s laboratory combines approaches from behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology to understand the diversity of reproductive traits and mating strategies. Her lab primarily studies insects and has an inordinate fondness for beetles.

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Néva Meyer‘s research focuses on the development of complex centralized nervous systems in annelids, specifically a marine worm called Capitella teleta. Her research aims to contribute to scientists’ understanding of how complex centralized nervous systems arose in different animal groups, and how those systems compare.

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Deborah Robertson lab uses molecular and physiological approaches to understand how marine algae and plants respond to natural and anthropogenic fluxes in nitrogen availability. Currently, members of the Robertson lab are exploring the cellular mechanisms that allow diatoms to persist during periods of nitrogen deprivation and then rapidly respond to episodic and seasonal increases in nitrate availability. In addition, the researchers are developing new DNA transformation vectors and methods for a variety of diatom species.

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Fungi are widely known as molds and mushrooms, but there is a gigantic diversity of microscopic fungi that we don’t know. The research group of Javier Tabima Restrepo aims to understanding the diversity, genomics, evolution and ecology of micro-fungal species associated with multiple hosts and ecosystems. Using the genus Basidiobolus as model, the T-lab focuses on studying the evolution of host-fungal interactions, the role of secondary metabolism in fungal biology, how fungal populations evolve and the delicate interactions between fungi and bacterial species in the gastrointestinal tracts.

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During development, cells within multicellular organisms have to “know” when and whether they should divide and what kind of cell they should become. The genes that control these decisions are the same ones that become altered in human tumors. Justin Thackeray‘s research team uses the fruit fly Drosophila to investigate how these regulatory cascades work, focusing on eye and wing development. He also is using the fly system to search for drugs that inhibit these pathways as potentially novel anti-cancer treatments.

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