Evolution & Ecology Faculty

Jill Anderson

Associate Professor
Genetics

Evolutionary genetics and population ecology of plants; global change biology;
field ecology; seed dispersal ecology; frugivorous fish.

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Tessa Andrews

Associate Professor
Genetics

Undergraduate evolution education; instructor experiences, knowledge,
and skills in teaching biology; teaching context and climate in life science departments.

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Jonathan Arnold

Professor
Bioinformatics; Genetics

Professor, Genetics; Research interest: Fungal gene regulatory
and biochemical networks, and biological clocks.

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Michael Arnold

Distinguished Research Professor
Genetics

Evolutionary significance of genetic exchange; effects of hybridization in natural
populations of plants and animals.

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Justin Bahl

Associate Professor
Infectious Diseases; Bioinformatics

Ecology, epidemiology and evolution of infectious RNA viruses (Influenza A virus, avian paramyxovirus,
RSV, MERS-CoV) in animals and humans

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Maor Bar-Peled

Associate Professor
Plant Biology

Molecular cell biology of the wall, Biofuel and BioEnergy, Golgi as model for System biology, Plant Immunity.

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Jeff Bennetzen

Professor
Genetics; Bioinformatics

Plant genomics and genome evolution, transposable elements,
and regulatory gene evolution.

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Douda Bensasson

Assistant Professor
Bioinformatics; Plant Biology

Genome bioinformatics, ecological and evolutionary genomics of yeast.

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Casey Bergman

Associate Professor
Bioinformatics; Genetics

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Pengpeng Bi

Assistant Professor
Genetics

We use​ the advanced genetic mouse models to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying
several diseases: obesity, diabetics, muscle and heart diseases.

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Alexander Bucksch

Assistant Professor
Plant Biology; Bioinformatics

Computational Plant Science, Phenotyping, Plant Imaging and Simulation.

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C. Robin Buell

Professor
GRA Eminent Scholar Chair in Crop Genomics
Plant Biology, Bioinformatics

Plant genome biology with a focus on crops and medicinal plants; Synthetic biology; Evolution of natural product biosynthesis

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Gaelen Burke

Associate Professor
Entomology

Functional and evolutionary genomics of microbial associations with insects; virology, symbiosis, immunity

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John Burke

Professor
Plant Biology

Evolutionary genetics; molecular evolution; genomics.

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Carmen Blubaugh

Assistant Professor
Entomology

Biodiversity; insect ecology; the role of soil microbes and defensive plant chemistry in plant/herbivore interactions, predator/prey interactions; sustainable agriculture

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Shu-Mei Chang

Professor
Plant Biology

Evolutionary Ecology of flowering plants; Plant mating system evolution.

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Katrien Devos

Distinguished Research Professor
Bioinformatics; Plant Biology

Crop genetics, comparative genomics and genome evolution.

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Lisa Donovan

Professor
Plant Biology

Plant evolutionary ecophysiology, adaptations to stress.

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Kelly Dyer

Professor
Genetics

Molecular evolution and evolutionary genetics, in particular genetic conflict,
sex chromosome evolution, genetics of adaptation and speciation,
and host-parasite interactions.

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Arthur Edison

Professor
GRA Eminent Scholar
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Genetics

Metabolomics and systems biology of Caenorhabditis elegans using NMR,
mass spec, and computational approaches.

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Mark Farmer

Professor
Cellular Biology

Protist systematics, cell evolution, and flagellar development.

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Brian Forschler

Professor
Entomology

The mission of the Household and Structural Entomology program is acquisition of information
on behavior, biology, ecology and evolution of associations with arthropods and human habitation.

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Travis Glenn

Associate Professor
Bioinformatics; Toxicology

Environmental Genomics; Crocodilians; Reptilian Genomics; Molecular Ecology.

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Adam Greer

Assistant Professor
Marine Sciences

Zooplankton ecology, predator-prey interactions, ocean biophysical coupling, plankton imaging and analysis

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Brendan Hunt

Assistant Professor
Entomology

Behavioral and evolutionary genetics and epigenetics of social insects.

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Natarajan Kannan

Associate Professor
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Bioinformatics

Evolutionary systems biology; protein kinase signaling in plants, pathogens and microbes. Evolution and classification of glycoenzymes.

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Jessica Kissinger

Distinguished Research Professor
Bioinformatics; Genetics

Parasite genomics and the biology of genome evolution.

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Stacey L. Lance

Associate Research Scientist
Toxicology; Savannah River Ecology Laboratory

Evolutionary toxicology, disease ecology, impacts of natural and anthropogenic stressors on freshwater vertebrates.

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Jim Leebens-Mack

Associate Professor
Plant Biology

Phylogenetics, genetics of diversification including speciation; molecular basis of adaptation;
evolutionary genomics; evolution of plant reproduction; organismal and molecular coevolution.

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Liang Liu

Assistant Professor
Bioinformatics

Phylogenetics, evolutionary biology, statistics.

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Wolfgang Lukowitz

Associate Professor
Plant Biology

Fertilization, and early cell-fate decisions in plant embryos.

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Rodney Mauricio

Professor
Genetics

Ecological genetics of plants; invasive plants; genetics of adaptation.

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Joe McHugh

Professor
Entomology

Evolution, systematics and anatomy of insects.

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Douglas Menke

Professor
Genetics

Developmental Regulation of Gene Expression; Evolution of Vertebrate Morphology.

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Patricia Moore

Professor
Entomology

The role of developmental mechanisms in sexual selection and the evolution of reproductive strategies in insects.

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Mary Ann Moran

Professor
Marine Sciences

Ecology of marine bacteria in the carbon and sulfur cycles;
application of ecological functional genomics techniques to marine microbes.

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Jan Mrázek

Associate Professor
Bioinformatics; Microbiology

Use bioinformatics and comparative genomics to study
relationships between the genomic DNA sequence and the
organism’s physiological characteristics,and regulatory
processes that govern the flow of genetic information.

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Kerry Oliver

Associate Professor
Entomology

Ecology and evolution of heritable symbiosis in insects.

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Elizabeth Ottesen

Assistant Professor
Microbiology

Ecology and physiology of environmental microbes. The use of community genomics and
transcriptomics to examine microbial behavior in natural systems.

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Ben Parrott

Assistant Professor
Toxicology; Savannah River Ecology Laboratory

Environmental and ecological influences on development, reproduction,
and aging in wildlife and humans.

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Andrew Paterson

Regents Professor and Head, Plant Genome Mapping Laboratory
Plant Biology; Genetics; Bioinformatics

My unit’s work addresses dimensions of plant genome biology relevant toward a more bio-based economy, linking increased fundamental knowledge to improved human lives.

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Chris Peterson

Professor
Plant Biology

Response and vulnerability of forests to natural (e.g. wind, fire) and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g. salvage logging),
and geographic patterns of disturbance severity.

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Megan Peterson

Assistant Professor
Plant Biology

Plant evolutionary ecology; population dynamics; responses to climate change

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Pejman Rohani

Regents’ Professor
Infectious Diseases

The ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, including measles, pertussis, avian influenza, dengue and polio using computational modeling.

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Ken Ross

Professor
Entomology

Population biology, evolutionary genetics, molecular systematics, and comparative
genomics of social insects (fire ants) with an emphasis on studies of genetic variation.

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Liliana Salvador

Assistant Professor
Infectious Diseases; Bioinformatics

Computational ecology; ecology and evolution of infectious diseases;
evolutionary dynamics; animal movement.

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Bob Schmitz

Professor
Genetics

Population epigenomics and mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance.

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Amanda Spivak

Associate Professor
Marine Sciences

Coastal ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry; ecosystem resilience to and recovery from disturbances; global change; carbon cycling

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Kathrin Stanger-Hall

Associate Professor
Plant Biology;
Adjunct Faculty in Entomology and the College of Education

Phylogeny and Signal Evolution in Fireflies (Coleoptera, Lampyridae); Science education research.

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Mike Strand

Distinguished Research Professor
Entomology

Molecular and evolutionary biology of insect parasites; virology, immunology, symbiont evolution, reproduction.

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Andrea Sweigart

Associate Professor
Genetics

Evolutionary genetics and genomics of natural plant populations.

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Dorset Trapnell

Assistant Professor
Plant Biology

Evolutionary biology and population genetics of natural plant populations, specifically evolutionary
factors that shape patterns of genetic variation and mechanisms for partitioning and maintaining species-wide diversity.

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C.J. Tsai

Professor, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar
Bioinformatics; Genetics; Plant Biology

Growth-defense tradeoff, phenylpropanoid metabolism and carbon allocation,
gene family evolution and functional diversification, alternative splicing and gene duplication.

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Kevin Vogel

Assistant Professor
Entomology

Integrating physiology, genomics, evolution, and microbial symbiosis to understand the biology of insect vectors of disease.

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John Wares

Professor
Genetics

Ecological genetics of natural populations.

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Michael White

Assistant Professor
Genetics

Evolutionary Genomics and Sex Chromosome Evolution.

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Patricia Yager

Professor
Marine Sciences

Marine microbial ecology and biogeochemistry; climate change.

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Kaixiong Ye

Assistant Professor
Genetics; Bioinformatics

Nutritional Genomics; Human Genetics; Population and Quantitative Genomics;
Gene-Diet Interaction during human evolution and in metabolic diseases;

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