Lotterhos Lab
The Lotterhos Lab at Northeastern Marine Science Center seeks to understand how climate has shaped marine biodiversity and how a now rapidly changing climate will affect biodiversity in the future. This is a challenging goal, since biodiversity is shaped by a complex web of ecological and evolutionary processes that make natural populations hard to predict. To better describe complex marine systems and improve predicability, our research uses theory and experiment to inform each other and develops novel statistical methodology to integrate data across biological, spatial, and temporal scales. Conceptually, we are interested in how feedbacks between ecological (from abiotic to biotic interactions) and molecular processes (from DNA sequence evolution to expression and epigenetic modifications) can lead to rapid evolutionary change that in turn affects how species interact with their environment. We are interested in central problems in marine systems such as the influence of climate on dispersal, recruitment, and local adaptation - but we also study broader problems in molecular ecology such as the inference of loci under selection from genome scans. To address these pressing issues in biological science, we use a combination of field surveys, experiments, mathematical modeling, genomics, and bioinformatics.
Fish, invertebrates, and trees: not that different.
anti-discrimination statement
I condemn any form of racism, sexism, harassment, or discrimination. I also condemn those who spread disinformation that damages and undermines democracy. Discrimination and disinformation damages our community and breaks down the excellence that we seek to achieve in STEM research and education. Marine science and evolutionary biology have long been dominated by white perspectives, some of which have been white supremacist views rooted in eugenics, and I acknowledge that this lack of diversity is detrimental to innovation.
I welcome and encourage participation by all individuals in my lab, regardless of age, culture, race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, national origin, physical or mental disability, politics, religion, sex, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, or subculture. I strive to cultivate a lab built on encouragement, acceptance, and mutual respect, thereby engendering a welcoming environment for all. I believe that innovation arises from diversity in terms of ideas and membership. I will vigorously and proactively reject prejudice and stereotyping whenever it is encountered in our profession, be it racism, xenophobia, religious discrimination, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or any other form.
I strive to make my community more inclusive and welcoming.
