Spencer Koury

Postdoctoral Fellow

Spencer received his BA from Colby College, majoring in Art and Biology. After briefly teaching high school Chemistry, he obtained a MS in Biology at American University working with the Smithsonian’s Vertebrate Zoology Collections. Spencer then completed his PhD in Ecology and Evolution at Stony Brook University under Dr. Walt Eanes. Working along established lines, he was first exposed to Experimental Population Genetics by studying the metabolic control of temperate adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster. Walt also fostered Spencer’s early interests in chromosomal inversions, recombination suppression, segregation distortion, and selfish sex chromosomes in various non-melanogaster Drosophilids; a topic which he would later pursue as a postdoctoral researcher in the Phadnis Lab at University of Utah and a NRSA fellow in the Hawley Lab at Stowers Institute for Medical Research. In November of 2023, Spencer joined the Stevison Lab at Auburn University researching the causes and consequences of recombination rate plasticity.

Spencer works in Experimental Population Genetics studying the forces that govern population behavior through direct experimentation. Two of the strongest forces shaping genome evolution are recombination and segregation of chromosomes, making meiosis one of the most critical and exciting biological processes for evolutionary biology. Because chromosomal rearrangements can alter the normal pattern of recombination and segregation, Spencer focuses on inversions in Drosophila species as a model system to understand both the cytogenetic causes and evolutionary consequences of violating Mendel’s Laws. To see some of his work developing and testing mathematical models for female meiotic drive, germline mitotic exchange, and recombination suppression please visit his Google Scholar profile.