Join us

Undergraduate students

Undergraduates are normally accepted into our group only if they have at least some computer programming experience, but feel free to contact us for advice while you go about getting such experience through a basic programming class. Undergraduates must be willing to commit to a minimum of 9 hours per week and more than a single semester: a larger commitment is preferred.

Graduate students

We are currently recruiting graduate students interested in any of our current areas of research, as well as graduate students whose own independent interests match well with the culture of the group. You can apply through the department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology here. You need to be accepted both by the department and by a faculty sponsor, so feel free to start a correspondence with me at any time. Alternatively, you can apply through the Arizona Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program, where after three rotations you can transfer into my lab via either the Biochemistry and Cellular Molecular Biology graduate program or the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program (GIDP) in Genetics. If you are mathematically inclined, you can apply to the GIDPs in Applied Math or Statistics. If you are unsure which program to apply to, please contact me for details, the choice has consequences for teaching opportunities and other funding sources, coursework, and rotations. Note that one funding source for US citizens and residents in years 2-3 is an NIH-funded training grant here on Computational and Mathematical Modeling of Biological Systems.

Some research areas that interest me right now (but which I might not have funding for) are

  • protein evolution (e.g. new methods to test for selection on intrinsically disordered sequences, determining long-term trends)

  • the evolution of rates of error in molecular processes (e.g. transcription, translation, the various kinds of somatically inherited damage that accumulate during aging to cause senescence and cancer)

  • the puzzle of how we persist as a species given extremely high deleterious mutation rates, and its consequences e.g. for sexual selection theory

  • density-dependent selection

  • the evolution of dormancy

  • the dynamics of host-parasite arms races where an asexual parasite's rate of adaptation is derived from population genetic considerations and may not entirely swamp that of a much more sexual host

  • the benefits of non-pharmaceutical interventions against the spread of infectious disease (for individuals vs. populations vs. subpopulations)

Other projects are also possible.

Postdocs

Applications that do not clearly demonstrate familiarity with our research will not receive a response.

There is currently no funded positions, but grants are pending, this website isn't always updated promptly, and so do get in touch.