I am interested in the dynamics that arise when evolutionary forces act on overlapping time scales. I derive theoretical predictions for patterns of genetic variation in such scenarios and identify phenomena that emerge when classical assumptions – like steady-state behavior or separation of time scales – break down. My work spans allele frequency spectra under time-varying demography and selection, as well as correlations between selected alleles at linked loci.
I enjoy collaborating with field biologists to understand the evolutionary forces shaping natural populations. In a recent project, I analyzed temporal genotype frequency data to show that dominance reversal (when an allele switches from being beneficial and dominant to deleterious and recessive) helps maintain polymorphism in Drosophila melanogaster. Earlier, I studied how past population growth contributed to deleterious variation in the critically endangered Calidris pygmaea.
I study how growth, competition, and diversification in cellular populations shape their collective dynamics over time. In collaboration with the Winslow lab, I infer tumor growth rates across space and time from genetic barcoding data. I focus on explaining which features of early tumor growth kinetics generate the broad distributions of clonal tumor sizes observed in experiments.