I am currently a post doc with Andy Clark’s group at Cornell in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. My main project focuses on the population variability of chemoreception (olfaction and gustation) using Drosophila melanogaster as the model organism. The long-term questions I am interested in addressing have to do developing methods to characterize and quantify the variability that exists at different levels of signaling processing.  To get at this more immediately, I have been studying the periphery of the chemosensory system - the olfactory and gustatory neurons, and the receptors they express. My approach has been using a combination of population genetics analyses, expression assays, and electrophysiology (images of recording setup).

I carried out my graduate work in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago, where I studied evolutionary genetics with Manyuan Long’s group in the Department of Ecology and Evolution.  My research at Chicago focused on the origin and evolution/population genetics of gene families, with particular interests on young chimeric genes and chemoreceptors in Drosophila. I also worked on a project investigating recombination and the reduction of purifying selection along the Drosophila’s 4th chromosome in three closely related species (D. melanogaster, D. simulans, D. yakuba).

In addition to lab work, I was associated with The Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science. My efforts with this were aimed at obtaining a better understanding of the early history of genetics.  To be a little more specific, my master’s thesis was on William Bateson’s refusal of the chromosome theory.  I was advised by Bill Wimsatt and Bob Richards.

Previously, while in college at Oregon State University, I spent several years working with Stevan Arnold’s group. I primarily worked under Adam Jones on issues related to measurements of sexual selection.

Before moving to Ithaca, and before Chi-town, I had spent a lot of time outside in the woods and along the coast of Oregon, or in the mountains and deserts of Colorado - the saddle of my bike providing the preferred vantage.  Though there are no mountains in Chicago, I really enjoyed taking advantage of the incredible neighborhood activities and events the city hosts. I continued to ride too, and picked up a whole new set of biking skills adapted to the urban terrains (many of these verbal).  Now that I am here in the fairly rural countryside of New York - surrounded by state parks and forests - I have been getting back on single track and pedaling along hilly empty country roads.