From left: Madeline Jarvis-Cross, George Sandler, Samantha Troendle, Stephen Wright, Felix Beaudry, Zoë Humphries, Julia Kreiner, Joanna Rifkin, Tyler Kent, Anna O’Brien, Solomiya Hnatovska, Jasmina Uzunovic, Haoran Xue.
Claire Abbasi, MSc Student
Claire completed their undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, where they worked on a number of projects investigating the genetic basis of ecologically significant traits such as leaf shape in Ipomea hederacea. For Claire’s MSc they will focus on how recently diverged Y chromosomes can vary in structure, levels of degeneration, and gene content.
Emily Glasgow, Laboratory Technician (Barrett/Wright/Stinchcombe labs)
Emily completed her MSc at the University of Guelph with Jocelyn Smith focusing on pheromone type genotyping and Cry1F resistance in the European corn borer. She joined the Wright, Stinchcombe, and Barrett labs as Lab Technician in January 2023.
Maria Jose Gomez Quijano, EEB Postdoctoral Fellow
Maria Jose (Majo) completed her PhD with Rob Colautti at Queen’s University, where she studied the evolutionary and ecological mechanisms driving local adaptation across contrasting timescales, combining population genomics and quantitative genetic approaches.
In her postdoc, Maria Jose is working on a large collaborative project investigating the invasion history and genetic basis of adaptation of Capeweed (Arctotheca calendula) in Australia. Her work focuses on temporal population genomics, using herbarium records to reconstruct patterns of introduction, spread, and adaptation over time.
Zoë Humphries, PhD Student, Co-supervised by Spencer Barrett
Zoë did her undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo, where she worked on a number of projects including studying molecular phylogenetics of fungi. For her graduate work she is studying the evolution of DNA methylation on the sex chromosomes of Rumex.
Joëlle Lafond, EEB Postdoctoral Fellow
Joëlle completed her Ph.D. on the study of atypical reproductive modes in vertebrates. More specifically, she investigated their origins, mechanisms, and consequences in a North American fish hybrid complex of the Chrosomus genus. Her postdoc, co-directed by Judith Mank (UBC) and Stephen Wright, consists of describing how recombination levels affect genome evolution in both fish sex chromosomes and whole plant genomes.
Laura Leventhal, EEB Postdoctoral Fellow
Laura completed her Ph.D. with Moises Expósito Alonso at Stanford University, where she studied the genomic basis and limits of adaptation and maladaptation using Arabidopsis thaliana. She utilized a predictive genomic framework and a climate-manipulated common garden to understand the capacity for adaptation to new environments and novel climates. In her postdoc, Laura is researching mutation load and fitness consequences harbored by the Y chromosome in the dioecious system, Rumex hastatulus. By integrating genomics and experimental evolution, she aims to connect patterns of Y-chromosome variation to selection and adaptation in natural populations.
Cassandre Pyne, PhD Student
Cassandre completed her MSc at the University of Guelph with Elizabeth Mandeville where she focused on the genetic basis of sex determination in Catostomus fishes. Cassandre’s interests include bioinformatics, population genomics, and sex chromosome evolution. Part of her PhD will focus on neo-sex chromosome introgression in Rumex hastatulus.
Stephen I. Wright, Professor
cv: Wright_CV (Updated September 2024)
Stephen got his PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2003, working with Deborah Charlesworth, and did a postdoc at the University of California, Irvine, with Brandon Gaut. His research interests are focused on genome evolution, genomic conflicts, and population genomics.