2021 Instructors
Note: Our course instructors are subject to change.
Sally Aitken
Sally Aitken is a Professor and Associate Dean, Research and Innovation, in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, and Director of the Centre for Forest Conservation Genetics. Her research integrates genomic and climatic data to understand the processes driving local adaptation to climate in trees, project the capacity for adaptation to new climates, and assess how management can affect adaptation to climate change. She is a co-author of the textbook “Conservation and the Genomics of Populations” (Allendorf, Funk, Aitken, Byrne, and Luikart), with the third edition due to be published later this year.
Eric C. Anderson
Eric is a research molecular geneticist at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Santa Cruz, CA, and a research associate in the Institute of Marine Sciences at University of California, Santa Cruz.
Eric develops and applies statistical and computational methods for inference from population genetic data. Most methods are directly relevant to management and conservation. His work has focused on Monte Carlo methods for efficient calculation of likelihoods from genetic models, Bayesian methods, computations on the coalescent process, application of hidden Markov models and graphical models to genetics, and inference in finite mixture models. He has recently been involved in developing methods for multigenerational pedigree inference using SNPs, deriving and using multiallelic "microhaplotype" marker data from next generation sequencing of amplicons, and large-scale pairwise relationship inference for close-kin mark-recapture.
Ellie Armstrong
Ellie is a 5th year PhD Candidate in the Petrov and Hadly labs at Stanford University. She primarily focuses on the genomics of large carnivores and how we can improve genomic resources and build low-impact monitoring techniques for these species. She is experienced in both short and long read genome assembly methods across diverse taxa and whole-genome resequencing methods. She is particularly interested in the dynamics of small populations and how common population genetic estimates such as heterozygosity reflect population health, adaptive potential, and extinction risk.
Mark Beaumont
Mark Beaumont is a Professor of Statistics in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. His research has encompassed a number of aspects of statistical inference in the context of population genetics and conservation genetics: estimation of effective population size, admixture, changes in population size, detecting outliers. His current projects include estimating selection coefficients from serial genetic data, jointly inferring demographic parameters with selection, and studying the evolution of the European wildcat, and hybridization between domestic cats and wildcats in Scotland.
Margaret Byrne
Margaret Byrne is Executive Director of Biodiversity and Conservation (Department of Biodiversity, Conservation, and Attractions, Western Australia) where she is active in the interface between science and policy in biodiversity conservation and management. Her research has focused on plant genetics to inform conservation strategies for rare and threatened plants as well as biodiversity conservation at landscape scales in relation to remnant viability, restoration, and adaptation to climate change. Her phylogeographic studies have provided a greater understanding of the evolutionary history of the Australian biota, and its influence on current distributions, patterns of genetic diversity, and location of refugia. Her current research interests are directed towards the application of genomics in plant conservation and climate change adaptation strategies.
Brenna Forester
Brenna is a landscape and molecular ecologist focused on conserving biodiversity in a period of rapid global change. Her research integrates environmental, genomic, and phenotypic data sets to assess adaptive capacity and inform the management of threatened species. Her current research areas include integrating genomic data into listing frameworks under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and conservation genomics of imperiled amphibians. She completed her MSc at Western Washington University and her PhD at Duke University. She is currently a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellow.
W. Chris Funk
My research is at the interface of evolution, ecology, genomics, and conservation. In the most general sense, I investigate the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that generate and maintain biodiversity by combining population genomics, experimental manipulations, and field studies. Much of my current research focuses on interactions between gene flow and local adaptation.
In addition to my interest in basic questions in evolutionary ecology, an important part of my research program applies population genetic concepts and new genomic tools to address conservation questions. Population genetics and genomics are invaluable in conservation and management for the delineation of conservation units, determining patterns of genetic connectivity across landscapes, and assessing the status and viability of threatened species. A major focus of my research program is the application of population genetics and genomics to address critical questions for biodiversity conservation.
Brian Hand
Brian Hand is an Assistant Research Professor at the 老虎机攻略 and the Flathead Lake Biological Station. Hand has conducted work across multiple genomics fields with a focus on bioinformatics, population, and landscape genetics/genomics. More recently he has been working on measuring the adaptive capacity of multiple stonefly species. As Co-PI on an NSF Dimensions of Biodiversity grant, his work on the project has included genome assembly for multiple stonefly species, whole-genome resequencing, and landscape/population genomics of aquifer dwelling and benthic species. Concurrently, he is Co-PI on a grant on forecasting the potential spread and invasion of Aquatic Invasive Species. This NASA funded project aims to integrate remotely sensed data, spatial distribution modeling, and eDNA sampling to better inform AIS management in the protection of native species.
Paul Hohenlohe
Paul A. Hohenlohe is an associate professor at the University of Idaho in the Department of Biological Sciences and the Institute for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies. Research in his group focuses on population genetics and genomics in a wide range of systems with applications to conservation. He has been involved in developing analysis methods and applications for RAD sequencing, and ongoing research also uses techniques such as sequence capture and whole-genome sequencing. Current projects include the genomics of disease resistance in Tasmanian devils and island foxes; admixture and adaptation in pygmy rabbits, red wolves, and tamarisk leaf beetles; and adaptive capacity and local adaptation in scrub jays, redband trout, and sagebrush.
Marty Kardos
Marty Kardos is a research molecular geneticist with the National Marine Fisheries Service at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle. He uses empirical and simulation-based approaches to understand evolution and population dynamics in the wild. Kardos' current work focuses on using genomic analyses of marine mammals and marine and anadromous fishes, with the ultimate goal of informing resource management and conservation. He is particularly interested in using genomic approaches to understand inbreeding depression, historical population size, hybridization, and its fitness consequences, and the intersection of adaptive potential and population dynamics.
Gordon Luikart
Gordon Luikart is a professor at the Flathead Lake Biological Station (老虎机攻略). He was a Research Scientist with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) at the Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble, France, and a Professor at the University of Porto (and CIBIO) Portugal. His research focuses on the development and application of molecular and computational approaches to understand the genetic basis of fitness, adaptation, connectivity, the spread of invasive species/pathogens, and the conservation of wild and domestic animals. He co-authored the book entitled Conservation and the Genomics of Populations, with Fred Allendorf, Chris Funk, Sally Aitken, and Margaret Byrne -
Mike Miller
Mike Miller is and assistant professor of population/quantitative genetics/genomics at the University of California, Davis. His research interests are in animal genetics and genomics, conservation and ecological genomics, bioinformatics technology development, and salmonid fishes. He is a co-inventor of RADs and related novel molecular technologies. Mike led the sequencing of the rainbow trout genome.
Steve Mussmann
Steve Mussmann is a research affiliate of the University of Arkansas. His MS (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and PhD (University of Arkansas) focused on conservation genetics of both terrestrial and aquatic organisms. Research interests include: bioinformatics, software development for population genetic analysis of non-model organisms, delineation of conservation units, phylogenetics, population genetics, and native fishes of the southwestern US. Currently, Steve is working on publishing his dissertation, which includes a comprehensive phylogenetic and population genetic analysis of speckled dace (Rhinichthys osculus) throughout its range in western North America.
Shawn Narum
Shawn Narum is an adjunct Faculty member with the University of Idaho, Aquaculture Research Institute, College of Natural Resources. He is also a Senior Scientist/Lead Geneticist with the Fishery Science Department/Hagerman Genetics Lab & The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. His research interests include ecological genomics and local adaptation of native fishes, genetic monitoring of fisheries, and evaluating the genetic effects of hatchery practices. Much of Shawn's research is facilitated by collaborations with tribal, state, and federal biologists to apply recent advances in genomics. Outside of the lab, Shawn enjoys time with family and outdoor activities including fly fishing, mountain biking, and hiking.
Rita Rasteiro
Rita is a population geneticist in the School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. Rita’s main research interest regards the evolution of species; to understand the interplay of selection and demography on shaping the genetic diversity and structure of populations. In the past, she has applied model-based approaches to study the impact of major demographic events in Human Prehistory and in the context of conservation genetics. Currently, she is involved in the development of a method to jointly infer demographic parameters with selection, along with collaborating with ancient DNA researchers in Portugal to study the population past of several Iberian domestic species (dogs and cattle).
Angel Rivera-Col贸n
Angel G. Rivera-Colón is a PhD candidate in Julian Catchen’s lab at the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on comparative and population genomics in Antarctic notothenioid fish, particularly regarding the characterization of the genetic changes underlying polar-to-temperate transition in Antarctic white-blooded icefish. In addition to his research on icefish, he has worked on the development and implementation of RADseq-related bioinformatic software, including Stacks and RADinitio.
Norah Saarman
Norah P. Saarman is an assistant professor of evolutionary ecology and population genomics from the Department of Biology and Ecology Center at Utah State University. Her research in evolutionary biology leverages advances in basic research to solve real-world problems at the human-nature interface. Past research focused on conservation in the marine system, and current research has turned to disease vectors in the terrestrial system. She is particularly interested in using landscape genetics, knowledge of the genetic basis of adaptive traits, and the coevolutionary dynamics between insects and their endosymbionts to improve vector and disease control.
Rena Schweizer
Rena Schweizer is a postdoc in the Division of Biological Sciences at the 老虎机攻略. She is an evolutionary biologist who integrates genomics, physiology, and modern computational methods to understand the genetic basis of adaptation in natural populations. During her graduate work at UCLA, Rena implemented genomic approaches to understand genetic substructure and natural selection in gray wolves. She also developed bioinformatics resources and led analyses in several multi-institutional collaborations exploring demographic history and selection in dogs and wolves. Rena has extensive experience in many types of genomic data, and has learned a suite of computational skills, including scripting in Python, R, and Unix and parallelizing analyses on multi-core servers.
Arun Sethuraman
Dr. Sethuraman is an evolutionary computational biologist who develops new statistical methods to study how genomes evolve in structured populations during divergence and speciation in response to natural selection and demography. Applications of his work include conservation, deciphering human evolutionary history, agriculture, and biological control. Outside the lab, he loves CrossFit and spoiling his two cats, Hobbes and Pepper.
Helen Taylor
Helen Taylor is the conservation programme manager at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), based at Edinburgh Zoo. She is a conservation practitioner with a research background in conservation genetics, ecology, reproductive biology, and integrating genetics into conservation practice. Helen received her PhD from Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), where she researched inbreeding and inbreeding depression in the little spotted kiwi. She went on to work as a postdoc and then a research fellow at the University of Otago in Dunedin (New Zealand), studying the interactions between inbreeding and male fertility in threatened New Zealand birds. Helen has a strong interest in the effective integration of genetic research into conservation practice and, having recently made the transition from researcher to practitioner, has real-world insight into this issue. She is also an award-winning science communicator, having been awarded the Royal Society of New Zealand’s Callaghan Medal for Science Communication in 2018. In her current role, Helen manages conservation reintroduction projects for species from Eurasian beavers to pine hoverflies and works closely with the RZSS WildGenes conservation genetics laboratory to do so. She maintains active research collaborations with colleagues in New Zealand and elsewhere, and is a visiting fellow at Nottingham Trent University.
Gregg Thomas
Gregg is a postdoctoral researcher in the Division of Biological Sciences at the 老虎机攻略 in Jeff Good's lab. He got his PhD in Evolutionary Biology and Bioinformatics at Indiana University. His main research interests center around how changes in DNA sequences play a role in adaptation. He uses genomics and phylogenetics to understand the patterns and drivers of molecular evolution in a comparative framework, and he works through some of the problems in these analyses that come with vast amounts of genomic data. To this end, he has worked on modeling mutation rate variation in mammals, detecting convergent evolution using genomic data, and analyzing gene families in a number of species, including leading the comparative portion of the i5K project. He develops software to analyze biological data, including GRAMPA which aids in the study of polyploidy by using gene tree topologies, and Referee which annotates genome assemblies with quality scores, and he contributed to the latest version of CAFE to account for error in gene family analysis.
Robin Waples
Robin Waples is a senior scientist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center of the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. Robin led the Conservation Biology Division for a decade, conducting comprehensive reviews of the status of Pacific salmonids under the US federal Endangered Species Act. Research interests include: adapting standard population genetics theory so that it can be applied to real-world problems; combining diverse types of information (molecular genetics; life history; ecology) to characterize hierarchical levels of diversity in Pacific salmon; assessing the viability of complex conservation units that include multiple independent populations and diverse ecotypes; methods for analyzing gene flow and population structure; evolutionary consequences of anthropogenic changes to natural habitats; patterns of reproductive success across space and time; effects of age structure on calculation and estimation of effective population size.