About

Interests

My interests are varied but revolve around three main themes: evolutionary biology and evolution education, a curiosity for nature's curios, and a passion for justice and equality. Each of these major themes have shaped my education and experience, both in academia and beyond, and are the driving forces behind my research, activism, and teaching. 

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Evolution is the foundational principle of modern biology. As Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote in 1973: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." As an educator, I attempt to demonstrate why Dobzhansky's maxim is true – for example, how can we understand the genomic architecture of eukaryotes, riddled with parasitic DNA and giant introns interrupting coding sequences, without a detailed understanding of evolutionary genetics? How can we explain atavisms, such as the occasional appearance of hind limbs in dolphins or post-anal tails in humans without evolution? Or the great proliferation of defective viruses that inhabit the genomes of ourselves and our relatives, the insertion patterns of which so eloquently reflect ancestry. Without evolution, biology is merely a series of disconnected observations and facts, each of which are meaningless on their own – but together, unified by evolutionary theory, each of these individual facts reveal the incredible story of our history. 

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While many biologists are preoccupied with fascinations of vertebrates, I've tended to find the more curious creatures far more interesting. Vertebrates are but a tiny sliver of biodiversity (mammals are so species poor as to be regarded as an anomaly, in my humble opinion) – the vast majority of living things are invertebrates, such as arthropods, mollusks, the various phyla of worms, etc. Indeed, these organisms are so important to ecosystem function that without them, entire food webs would collapse. My own research has focused largely on arthropods, the most phenotypically diverse animals on the planet. Of these, I'm particularly fascinated by coastal organisms, with my study system being beach moles – small crustaceans that live on sandy beaches. I have long contended that if we are going to truly understand evolution, we should focus on those organisms that are the most diverse, not the least. 

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Lastly, scientists cannot ignore the world outside the lab. We live in an age of incredible wealth and technological advance, but these are concentrated in the hands of very few. I believe science progresses by enabling more diverse viewpoints to enter and feel welcome, and this requires us to actively fight for the conditions that would permit underprivileged people to thrive in a historically white, male-dominated field. We do this by actively fighting for their right to a living wage, for the right to housing, the right to gender-affirming care, the right to agitate for the abolition of armed police on university campuses, and the right to unionize and strike, if necessary, for these conditions. Too often universities and faculty members are invested only in performative activism – they host reading groups and workshops, seminars and luncheons. They talk. But what is needed is not word – we are past that. We need action, and we need it now.