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). A portion of this work has been published in Evolutionary Applications. 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 former 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 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. Additionally, I worked on classifying and naming the replacement genus for the North African sengi, Petrosaltator.