The Meyer lab uses variation in genomes to learn about the evolutionary history of humans and other living things, as well as how they adapt to their environments. In particular, we look at how similar patterns of genetic variation in different lineages that have evolved the same traits can provide clues as to which genes are important for these traits. We use methods from both population genetics, which focuses on evolution within species (e.g., within humans), and phylogenetics and comparative genomics, which look at evolution across broader evolutionary timescales (e.g., throughout mammals). In this work, we apply and adapt a range of bioinformatics tools to analyze data from many genomes.