About me

My research program integrates data from natural history, ecology, genomics, and paleontology—often through the application of novel computation tools—in order to understand the links between micro- and macroevolution.

Go Directly to Research for examples considering groups of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and deep-sea invertebrates.

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Background

I am currently supported by an Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Previously, I:

• was a Life Sciences Fellow at the University of Michigan (2019-2023).

• earned a PhD at Cornell University (2013-2019), working within Cornell’s Laboratory of Ornithology. As a graduate student, I investigated several dimensions of biodiversity, applying the tools of Systematic Biology, Population Genomics, and Paleontology. Key Paper 1Publisher’s AwardKey Paper 22019 Defense Seminar

• worked as a researcher in the Prum Lab (2010-2013), where I largely focused on discovering the evolutionary relationships within and among bird species.

• completed a Bachelors of Science degree at Yale University (2006-2010). My senior thesis investigated patterns of phylogeographic congruence among co-distributed open-habitat specialists across the Amazon basin.

I am currently affiliated with five groups within the University of Michigan

1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
2. Earth and Environmental Sciences
3. Museum of Zoology
4. Institute for Data Science
5. School for Environment and Sustainability

The site’s banner is a portion of Salvador Dali’s “Persistence of Memory.” Dawn Adès wrote, “The soft watches are an unconscious symbol of the relativity of space and time, a Surrealist meditation on the collapse of our notions of a fixed cosmic order.” In evolutionary biology, time is often relative and (outside of paleontology) rarely absolute. Dalí’s olive tree with its cut branches, overlain by time, is a reminder of the challenges we face in understanding the tree of life. To the top left, an allusion to Charles Darwin’s note, “I think”, from his famous illustration of a phylogenetic tree.