Research
Over the past few decades, genetics and genomics of wild animals have revolutionized our understanding of how natural populations have moved, adapted, interbred, and evolved across the world and the tree of life. Even one genome sequence of an individual can provide a window into the demographic history of an entire species over thousands to millions of years.
However, genomics restricted to contemporary individuals lack temporal context. Fragmented or even 'genetically distinct' populations today may have been in continuous contact hundreds of years ago. Some species harbor low genetic diversity because there have always been a small number of individuals throughout their evolutionary history, while others have lost tremendous diversity recently due to human activities. Resolving these ambiguities has tremendous impact on management strategies for imperiled species.
My research leverages specimens preserved in museum collections over the past 200+ years to provide a clearer picture of recent genetic change and to provide context to population and conservation genomics projects.
My dissertation focused on the evolutionary and conservation genomics of Channel Island deer mice (Peromyscus gambelii subspp.), a group of 8 endemic island subspecies found in California. For my research, I assembled a time series of genomic data from the late 19th century to 2015, tracking genomic change over time in all 8 populations of Peromyscus. Often called "natural laboratories", islands are a perfect place to study in situ change, and long-term human activities on the islands can help us understand how land-use and habitat degradation affects genomic diversity and population health over time.
Additionally, my research includes phylogenetic and biogeographic analysis to understand where Channel Island deer mice came from and to determine their relationships to other forms Peromyscus on the mainland. Museum specimens are also incredible resources for sampling widespread populations, and for finding unexpected results using rare samples!
Map of the Channel Islands
Lencer, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Island deer mouse (Peromyscus gambelii subspp.)
National Park Services
Sampling island deer mouse specimens
at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum
for genomic analysis
Past Research
Projects
Cetacean skulls with Dr. McGowen at NMNH
James Di Loreto, Smithsonian Institution
Gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) pelt I prepared for NMHLAC after sampling the specimen for scat
Grassland bird cecal metagenomics
George Mason University
I worked with Dr. Haw Chuan Lim at GMU's EvoGenomics Lab and Dr. Patrick Gillevet at GMU's Microbiome Analysis Center for two semesters on sage grouse and prairie chicken metagenomics, processing genetic data and performing analysis on shotgun sequences of ceca from these grassland birds using the metaWRAP pipeline. You can watch my AGA lightning talk to learn about some of our very preliminary results.
Dolphin phylogeography & evolution
National Museum of Natural History
Spawned from an NSF-REU project at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, I've worked on the systematics and phylogeography of dolphins (subfamily Delphininae) with Dr. Michael McGowen. Using mitogenomics, I also studied the genetic relationships between morphotypes of the common dolphin (Delphinus delphis). We found that, contrary to older taxonomies splitting Delphinus into separate species based on beak length ratios, that long-beaked dolphins around the world have evolved multiple times. We also included an understudied population in Senegal, where both short- and long-beaked dolphins co-occur, and found that they were closely related, unlike non-breeding populations of short- and long-beaked in California. To learn more, check out our paper in Marine Mammal Science.
Island fox microbiome analysis
University of Southern California
As an undergraduate researcher, I was involved with Dr. Nicole Adams's island fox (Urocyon littoralis) dissertation work on genetic bottlenecks and the fecal microbiome in Dr. Suzanne Edmands's Population & Conservation Genetics Lab, As part of this project, I performed 16S DNA extraction/amplification/library prep techniques and conducted computational genetic data analysis (Mothur, Qiime). Check out our paper on the microbiome results in Frontiers!
Other Projects
Taxonomy Curation: Mammal Diversity Database
During my PhD, I served as a student research assistant for the American Society of Mammalogists' Mammal Diversity Database, dedicated to documenting the taxonomies for all the new and known mammals in the world. It's an incredible open and comprehensive taxonomy site, through which the ASM hopes to make the latest information on mammal taxonomy easily accessible to everyone. Read the latest paper to learn more about some of the cool geographic and taxonomic data trends we were able to find with the dataset the MDD curates!
Urocyon skull
Specimen Preparation: Natural History Museum of LA County
Museum collections harbor invaluable genetic material from the past, allowing researchers to better understand the state of populations in the present. As an undergraduate volunteer, I contributed to collections by preparing several mammalian study skins and skeletons, including some photos shown on this website. I'm proudest of Lincoln, a koala from the LA Zoo (homepage header).