Our lab is dedicated to combining high-throughput perturbation experiments with bioinformatics analyses to provide empirical evidence for theoretical models in evolutionary biology, and to investigate the genetic basis of evolution.

Centered on the role of regulatory changes in evolution, we conduct research in the following areas:

• In yeast models, we employ multiple perturbation approaches including mutational scanning, genome editing, and laboratory evolution to explore the evolvability of gene regulatory networks.

• Focusing on mitochondrial gene regulatory networks, we investigate the genetic basis underlying temperature phenotype divergence between Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Saccharomyces uvarum.

• In Drosophila models, we characterize the grammar of regulatory elements such as enhancers, explore the effects of cis-regulatory mutations on morphological phenotypes, develop high-throughput genome editing tools, and explore the emerging field of “synthetic evo-devo”.

Our lab welcomes undergraduate and graduate students (graduate program: Ecology - Evolution and Molecular Ecology) interested in evolutionary genetics. Please feel free to contact us if you are interested!