I am fascinated by the enormous diversity of insects, in particular the bees. There are over twenty-thousand described species of bees worldwide and 5200 in North America!. The honey bees and bumble bees that most people are familiar with make up less than 2% of the total bee diversity. My work focuses on three areas:

1) Integrative Taxonomy - that is the discovery, description, and classification of bee diversity using a combination of data (e.g., morphology, DNA, behaviour, biogeography).

2) Molecular Phylogenetics - understanding the evolutionary relationships of bees and using that information to better understand historical biogeography, classification, and the evolution of traits such as social behaviour. We are interested is using targeted capture of ultra-conserved elements to explore the evolutionary history of wild bees.

3) Applied Entomology and Diversity - surveying bees, natural enemies, and species of conservation concernt in natural and agricultural landscapes to better understand how insects are spatially and temporally distributed and how diversity relates to ecological function and conservation.

For examples of my research in these areas, you may visit my list of publications, or see my Research Gate and Google Scholar profiles.