Research

My research combines cutting-edge genome sequencing over space and time with habitat data, demographic data, and computational methods in order to understand species’ and communities’ evolutionary responses to environmental change over time and to inform conservation solutions to ensure their persistence. I am particularly interested in using genetics and museum collections to understand the underpinnings of species’ responses to novel stresses and to preserve biodiversity in the current era of global change.

My ongoing research includes active involvement in the Philippines PIRE project, which pairs museum specimens collected in the early 1900s with contemporary populations to understand how habitat change has influenced neutral and adaptive genetic diversity in fish. I am also leading in a large-scale project aimed at creating a genomic database for the endangered Blanding’s turtle for use in conservation planning and forensics.

I am looking forward to establishing local research in Belgium on the responses of aquatic and semi-aquatic communities (focusing on fish and amphibians) to environmental change.