Wright lab Journal club, May 17, 2018
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
Felix Beaudry – PhD Candidate
Felix is interested in the interaction between selection interference, gene expression and sexual dimorphism. Using population genetic techniques in the dioecious plant Rumex hastatulus, he hopes to understand how sexed-bodies and genetic sex come together to influence genome evolution and overcome genetic load. Visit Felix’s website here.
Baharul Choudhury – Research Associate
Baharul got his PhD at Concordia University, working on the population genetics of traditionally cultivated rice. His current research focus is on chromatin evolution on the sex chromosomes of Rumex.
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.
Julia Kreiner – PhD Student
Co-supervised by John Stinchcombe
Julia completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph, working with Brian Husband on the evolutionary dynamics of unreduced gamete production in Brassicaceae and its implications for polyploid formation. She is currently studying the population genomics of resistance adaptation to ALS herbicides across the Brassicaceae, and glyphosate in Amaranthus, to gain insight into factors that limit the extent and rate of adaptation.
Tyler Kent– PhD Student
Tyler did his undergrad at UC Davis with a major in Genetics and Genomics and a minor in Statistics, where he worked on crop-wild gene flow in Oryza and helped develop scripts to make genomic software easier to use and visualize. He is currently working on mapping recombination and gene conversion in Capsella grandiflora in order to better understand recombinational hotspots in plants and to be able to comparatively study the effects of background selection in Brassicaceae.
Ting Liu – Bioinformatician
Ting is a bioinformatician working with a number of labs in the department. In the Wright lab, she is working on comparative genomics and molecular evolution in the Brassicacae.
Meghan Lucky – M.Sc. student ,Co-supervised by Aneil Agrawal
Meghan completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta, where she studied the evolution of buzz pollination in the genus Bombus. She is currently interested in the population genomics of Queen Anne’s lace.
Joanna Rifkin- Postdoctoral Fellow
Co-supervised by Spencer Barrett
Joanna did her PhD with Mark Rausher at Duke University, where she studied the genetics and population genetics of mating system evolution in morning glories. Her current research involves studying the comparative genomics of sex chromosome evolution and the genetics of sex ratio variation in the genus Rumex
Bianca Sacchi- M.Sc. Student
Bianca completed her undergraduate degree in molecular genetics at the University of Alberta where she worked on the population genetics of lodgepole pine. She is currently studying the population genomics of gene expression in Capsella grandiflora.
George Sandler- PhD Student, Co-supervised by Aneil Agrawal
George did his undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto working with Stephen Wright and Spencer Barrett on the role of haploid selection in plant sex chromosome evolution. He is currently working on projects related to the evolution, maintenance and consequences of sexual reproduction in duckweed.
Jasmina Uzunovic- Genomics Analyst
Jasmina did her undergraduate work and M.Sc. at the University of Toronto in the Wright lab on the population genomics of transposable elements (TEs) in Capsella. She is currently working on a number of projects in the lab related to transposable element evolution and gene expression variation.
Stephen I. Wright- Professor
cv:Wright_CV (updated April 2018)
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.
Haoran Xue – PhD Candidate, co-advised with Spencer Barrett
Haoran did his undergraduate degree at Peking University in China, where he worked on several projects including the intraspecific molecular phylogeny of the tiger. He is currently studying the genetic architecture of tristyly, a genetic polymorphism that reduces selfing and promotes outcrossing, in Eichhornia paniculata.