Casey W. Dunn
Assistant Professor of Biology
Ph.D., Yale University

I study the evolutionary developmental biology of animals, with most of my work focusing on the Cnidaria (the group of animals that includes the corals, jellyfish, and hydrozoans). My particular interests include animal symmetry properties, the evolution and development of functional specialization, and evolutionary transitions in biological organization (with particular focus on colony-level organization). This work is highly integrative and necessarily draws on a variety of tools, including molecular developmental biology, classical experimental embryology, molecular phylogenetics, bioinformatics, systematics, and descriptive morphology. My research has both a laboratory component, which centers on the development of the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis, and a strong field-based component that consists largely of collecting animals from oceanic research ships using submersibles and SCUBA diving. In addition to my conceptual evolutionary interests, I am deeply interested in the siphonophores, a group of pelagic colonial hydrozoans.

Siphonophores