People: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics
Heather Hines
Interim Director, Center for Pollinator Research; Interim Director, Insect Biodiversity Center; Associate Professor of Biology and Entomology
Applies genomic, transcriptomic, phylogenomic, and bioinformatic approaches to study the evolution and genetics of diverse traits in bees and wasps. This includes study of mimetic color diversification, plant gall induction, novel morphologies, speciation, and social evolution.
Kevin Hockett
Huck Early Career Chair; Associate Professor of Microbial Ecology
Biological Control, Biology and Ecology of Plant-Microbe and Plant-Environment Interactions, Microbial Ecology and Population Biology Faculty
Kelli Hoover
Professor of Entomology
Invasive species of forest insects; plant-insect-entomopathogen interactions; impacts of plants on pathogenesis; biological control of hemlock woolly adelgid
David Huff
Professor of Turfgrass Breeding and Genetics
Population genetics. Plant evolution and ecology. Crop improvement. Physiological tolerance to biotic and abiotic stress.
Timothy Jegla
Emphasis Area Representative, Molecular and Evolutionary Genetics; Associate Professor of Biology
Functional evolution of eukaryotic ion channels and evolution of neuronal signaling and cell structure.
Helen Kamens
Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health
Identification of genetic mechanisms that contribute to complex behaviors with a special emphasis on alcohol and tobacco use.
Seogchan Kang
Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology
Genetic and cellular mechanisms underpinning plant-fungal interactions with Arabidopsis thaliana and Fusarium oxysporum as a model system. Molecular genetics and comparative genomics of fungal plant pathogens. Bioinformatics.
Vivek Kapur
Associate Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Huck Distinguished Chair in Global Health; Professor of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
The basic mechanisms by which pathogenic microbes successfully infect, colonize, and cause disease in their hosts.
David Kennedy
Assistant Professor of Biology
Ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, with particular interest in how disease dynamics influence pathogen emergence, virulence evolution, and drug or vaccine resistance.
Tae Hyun Kim
Huck Early Career Chair; Assistant Professor of Avian Biology
Improving poultry health by applying modern genetic approaches including gene editing. Particular focus on identifying key genes and regulatory elements associated with improved economic traits.
Jasna Kovac
Lester Earl and Veronica Casida Career Development Professor of Food Safety; Associate Professor of Food Science
Integrating epidemiological, microbiological, molecular and omics methods to better understand microbial pathogenic potential, antimicrobial resistance, and epidemiology of foodborne pathogens.
Zhi-Chun Lai
Emphasis Area Representative, Cell and Developmental Biology; Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Signal Transduction, Growth Control, and Cancer Genetics
Tae-Hee Lee
Professor of Chemistry
Single-molecule biophysics of the nucleosome and chromatin
Scott Lindner
Co-Director, Center for Malaria Research; Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Our laboratory couples molecular parasitology and structural biology to study the malaria parasite (Plasmodium spp.).
Aimin Liu
Associate Professor of Biology
Biogenesis and function of cilia in mammalian embryonic development.
Wansheng Liu
Professor of Genomics
Functional annotation of farm animal genomes, structure and function of mammalian sex (X and Y) chromosome, spermatogenesis and male fertility.
Bernhard Luscher
Emeritus Professor of Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Function of GABAergic synaptic transmission in health and disease, with emphasis of stress based psychiatric disorders such as major depressive disorders and mechanisms of antidepressant drug action
Shaun Mahony
Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
We apply neural networks and other machine learning approaches to understand how transcription factors control cellular identity
Kateryna Makova
Director of the Center for Medical Genomics; Professor of Biology
Molecular evolution, population genetics, evolutionary genomics, bioinformatics, and human genetics.
Yingwei Mao
Professor of Biology
Regulation of neurogenesis using cellular and mouse models; analysis of abnormal neural progenitor cell (NPC) proliferation and its relationship to mental illnesses; identification of drugs that can reverse mouse models of psychiatric disorders.
Elizabeth McGraw
Professor and Huck Scholar in Entomology
The genetics of vector, pathogen and symbiont interactions.
Timothy Meredith
Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Understanding how bacterial cell surface complex lipids are synthesized, to characterize structural modifications in response to varying growth environments, and to uncover how these changes are regulated.
Rob Mitchell
Associate Professor of Chemical Ecology
The chemical ecology of insects
Katsuhiko Murakami
Director of the Center for Structural Biology; Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Structural and Mechanistic Enzymology of Prokaryotic RNA Polymerases