Note: Our course instructors are subject to change.
Sally Aitken
Sally Aitken is a Professor 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); the third edition was published in Spring 2022.
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 an assistant professor at UC Riverside. She worked 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. She co-leads California and international projects assembling genomes and teaching assembly.
Matt DeSaix
Matt is a population geneticist whose research focuses on expanding the conservation genomics toolbox for addressing wildlife conservation and management. To that end, he uses empirical and simulation-based approaches to understand population genetic processes in wild populations and develops corresponding software. In recent years he focused on developing population assignment tests for use with genotype likelihood data from low-coverage whole genome sequencing and applying these methods to understanding avian migratory patterns. He is currently involved in research applied to invasive wild pig management that includes detecting translocated individuals, characterizing admixed ancestry, and identifying informative markers for African Swine Fever preparedness and response. He completed his PhD in the Ruegg Lab at Colorado State University. Currently, he is an ORISE Fellow with the USDA-APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories and works out of the National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colorado.
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, her PhD at Duke University, and a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship at Colorado State University. She is currently an Endangered Species Biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in the Branch of Species Status Assessment Science Support.
W. Chris Funk
The Funk Lab strives to understand the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms that generate and maintain biodiversity, and how rapid global environmental change affects these processes. We address questions by integrating population genomics, quantitative field methods, controlled experiments, and computational analysis in a variety of taxonomic groups (amphibians, fish, stream insects, birds, mammals, reptiles, and terrestrial insects). Much of our research focuses on freshwater habitats, such as streams, rivers, ponds, wetlands, and lakes.
In addition to my interest in basic questions in evolution and ecology, an important part of my research program applies population genetic theory and next-generation sequencing data 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.
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.
William Hemstrom
Will is a recent Ecology PhD graduate from UC Davis. His research focuses on the genetics of migration in Monarch Butterflies and other species and on improving and developing methods for estimating the genetic architecture of quantitative traits in order to better predict the demographic impacts of ecological changes on populations. He also has an interest in developing user-friendly software for population genetics in order to make the genetic toolkit more easily accessible for ecologists and conservationists.
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 their fitness consequences, and the intersection of adaptive potential and population dynamics.
Schuyler Liphardt
After getting his PhD at the University of New Mexico in 2021, Schuyler became a postdoc in the Good and Cheviron labs at the 老虎机攻略. His PhD work focused on using genetics to reconstruct the history of the movement of viruses through mammalian hosts, and he has also published papers on small mammal phylogeography and biodiversity. Schuyler's research interests include viral evolution, mammalian adaptation and speciation, museum science, and high performance research computing.
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
Eryn McFarlane
Eryn McFarlane is an evolutionary ecologist interested in speciation in wild systems. She uses quantitative genetics and genomics to answer questions about hybridization, reproductive isolation, competition, and physiology. She combines long-term field monitoring with experiments in the wild to better understand what happens when closely related species come into secondary contact. She is currently an assistant professor at York University in Toronto. Her current research integrates empirical data (from the Scottish Red deer x sika hybrids project) with simulations to make recommendations about best practices for statistics in evolutionary and conservation genetics.
Angel Rivera-Col贸n
Angel G. Rivera-Colón is a Postdoc at the University of Oregon. 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.
Rena Schweizer
Rena Schweizer is a broadly-trained wildlife conservation geneticist. In her research, Rena integrates genomics, population genetics, bioinformatics, and physiology to evaluate the conservation status of wildlife populations and study evolution. During previous work, Rena has implemented a variety of approaches to understand genetic substructure and natural selection in gray wolves, high-altitude adaptation and ecophysiology in deer mice, and thermal acclimation in black-capped chickadees. Rena is currently a Research Entomologist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service Pollinating Insects Research Unit, where she is working on conservation genomics of U.S. native bees.
Helen Taylor
Helen Taylor is the conservation program 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 Bioinformatics Scientst at Harvard Univeristy. 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 an Affiliate Professor at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington and Emeritus Senior Scientist with the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle. At NMFS, 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.