CURRENT
K99/R00 Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Project Title: “Novel methods for detecting positive selection in mosquitoes”.
The proposed research will first develop a new fundamental method that corrects for model mis-specification when performing selection inference and then test this method on populations of the yellow fever mosquito to explicate the genomic underpinnings of rapid adaptation to insecticides (Aim 1). Next, it will use long-read based approaches to explore the role of structural variation (genomic variation >50bp) in rapid adaptation. It will combine cutting-edge assembly- and read-based approaches to explore the repeatability of the targets of selection across distinct environments to insecticide pressures (Aim 2). The final aim will focus on developing the first machine learning tool to detect a relatively understudied form of rapid adaptation, namely adaptive tracking, where fluctuating selective pressures result in repeatable adaptive shifts in allele frequencies over seasonal and sub-seasonal timescales. This novel approach will be used to characterize the targets of fluctuating selection in a major disease vector and assess whether the presence of strong direction selection alters the degree, tempo, and targets of adaptive tracking (Aim 3).
PAST
Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (PRFB), National Science Foundation (NSF), 2022
Project title: "Adaptation along a thermal gradient in the holopelagic ctenophore, Mnemiopsis leidyi".
Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP), NSF, 2017
Project title: "Mechanisms of thermal adaptation in natural populations of an estuarine specialist"
Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide (GROW), NSF, 2019
Project title: "Comparative genomics of a recent species radiation in the sea urchin genus Echinometra from the western Pacific Ocean"
Other:
Graduate School Summer Fellowship Program, 2021
Lucille P. and Edward C. Giles Dissertation Year Graduate Fellowship, 2020
VWR Founder’s Grant, 2018
NSF Conference Travel Award to attend GIGA III, 2018
International Society for Reef Studies Graduate Fellowship, 2018
Lerner-Gray Grant for Marine Research, 2017
Full scholarship to attend the Winter Institute of Statistical Genetics, NYU Abu Dhabi, 2017
NYU Abu Dhabi Capstone Research Funding Award, 2014
NYU Abu Dhabi Internship Funding Award, 2014
NYU Abu Dhabi Undergraduate Research Funding Award, 2014
NYU Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund Grant, 2013
Full Scholarship for undergraduate studies at NYU Abu Dhabi, 2011