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Office: 300 Walter Hall (401)/863-3937 Office Hours: By appointment and Wednesdays 1 - 3 during the fall term |
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| GRADUATE STUDENTS |
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NSF Graduate Research Fellowship 2013 - 2016 Christopher_Graves at brown dot edu Natural selection is inherently short-sighted, favoring traits based on their immediate effects on survival and reproduction. However, natural environments are constantly changing, and thus the fitness effects of many traits are variable through time. My research examines the consequences of this temporal variation in fitness and the role it plays in adaptation. Current projects include developing mathematical models and simulations to explore the consequences of variable selective pressures in the evolution of infectious diseases and experimental work to test predictions of evolutionary theory by tracking the evolutionary dynamics of yeast populations as they evolve in a variable environment. |
 Yinghong LanGraduate Student BS University of Science and Technology of China 2012 My general interest includes fundamental theoretical questions in the fields of population genetics and evolutionary genetics, and testing these ideas using simulations and microbial experiments. Recently I have been working on understanding mutational robustness, i.e., the ability to sustain fitness against deleterious mutations. Combining analytical with simulation approaches, our research show that in contrast to the conventional wisdom, flatter regions of the fitness landscape cannot confer long-term resilience against mutations. We propose instead that fitness “domes”, i.e., fitness peaks with negative epistasis, is where selection would drive populations constantly facing the challenge of high mutation rates. I’m currently testing this hypothesis using both Wright-Fisher simulations and directed evolution of TEM-1 ß-lactamase in E. coli. |
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Current Undergraduates Selena Buzinky '15 |