Research

RESEARCH

Evolution of Feral Pigeons

I am currently using pigeons as a model to understand gene flow and genetic drift in the Northeast Megacity (Boston, MA to Washington, DC). I'm also interested in diet changes and toxicity resistance in urban pigeons.

FID in Feral Pigeons

I am investigating Flight Initiation Distance (FID) in pigeons in the New York City metropolitan area with the help of Columbia University undergraduate Richard Li. FID is a common measure of the willingness of an animal to take risks and should increase as predation risk decreases and decrease as escape costs increase.

Phylogenetics of Giant Elephant-Shrews

For my Masters research, at San Francisco State University in conjunction with the California Academy of Science, I assembled the first molecular phylogeny of giant sengis (also known as elephant-shrews). Giant sengis are small-bodied mammals that range from central through eastern Africa. This work has been published in Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution.