I currently use water-in-oil emulsions and agent based models to study how spatial segregation affects evolution.
Previous work: I use bacteriophages to study the evolution and ecology of host-pathogen interactions.
Viruses that infect bacteria can be thought of as antagonistic parasites of bacterial hosts. I am interested how this kind of interaction can shape the future evolution of a host organism (or parasite). As a host and parasite spend time with one another over multiple generations, they can influence which kinds of naturally occurring variation (such as mutations) fix in the population. Thus, as a host population evolves resistance to the parasite, the parasite is under pressure to evolve a superior infection mechanism. The host is then under pressure to evolve resistance to this new super-parasite. I am interested in how this two-player system (where host and parasite evolve in response to one another) influences where each player ends up after long periods of evolution.
Department of Biology University of Washington Box 351800 Seattle, WA 98195 USA