As a genomicist and behavioral ecologist, my research focused on the intersection between genetic variation and fitness.
I am currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. George (PJ) Perry at Pennsylvania State University. Here, I will be conducting a functional genomics study of baseline and growth hormone-induced genome-wide methylation profile changes between human populations with different height and growth phenotypes. This study will be conducted using lymphoblastoid cell lines from Batwa rainforest hunter-gatherers and neighboring Bakiga agriculturalists from Southwest Uganda. Previously (2014-2017), I was a FIRST postdoctoral fellow at Emory University in the lab of Dr. Donna Maney. I was investigating the organizational effects of genetic differentiation along a unique chromosomal inversion in the nestlings of white-throated sparrows (Zonotrichia albicollis). For my doctoral work (2008-2014), I worked on an endangered species, the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) in the Laboratory of Dr. Christine Drea. At Duke University, I was a Doctoral Candidate at in the University Program in Ecology and a teaching assistant and instructor for the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology. For more information, see the Research and Teaching links above. Fortunate are those who have learned to see, in the wild things of nature, something to be loved, something to be wondered at, something to be reverenced, for they will have found the key to a never-failing source of recreation and refreshment. - Hugh B. Cott |
