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. Website

Tessa Andrews Associate Professor Genetics Undergraduate evolution education; instructor experiences, knowledge, and skills in teaching biology; teaching context and climate in life science departments. Website

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 Website

Maor Bar-Peled Associate Professor Plant Biology Molecular cell biology of the wall, Biofuel and BioEnergy, Golgi as model for System biology, Plant Immunity. Website

Jeff Bennetzen Professor Genetics; Bioinformatics Plant genomics and genome evolution, transposable elements, and regulatory gene evolution. Website

Douda Bensasson Associate Professor Bioinformatics; Plant Biology Genome bioinformatics, ecological and evolutionary genomics of yeast. Website

Casey Bergman Associate Professor Bioinformatics; Genetics Website

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. Website

Holly Bik Assistant Professor Marine Sciences, Bioinformatics Invertebrate microbiomes; nematode ecology and evolution; benthic and deep-sea habitats; using environmental DNA for biomonitoring Website

Blake Billmyre Assistant Professor, Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Sciences Department/Infectious Diseases Department High throughput genetics to better understand evolution of fungal pathogens and drive antifungal drug discovery. Website

Katie Billmyre Assistant Professor, Genetics Department Meiotic chromosome biology using Drosophila as a model system. Website

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 Website

Gaelen Burke Associate Professor Entomology Functional and evolutionary genomics of microbial associations with insects; virology, symbiosis, immunity Website

John Burke Distinguished Research Professor and Department Head Plant Biology Evolutionary genetics; molecular evolution; genomics. Website

Shu-Mei Chang Professor Plant Biology Evolutionary Ecology of flowering plants; Plant mating system evolution. Website

Megan DeMarche Assistant Professor Plant Biology Plant evolutionary ecology; population dynamics; responses to climate change Website

Katrien Devos Distinguished Research Professor Bioinformatics; Plant Biology Crop genetics, comparative genomics and genome evolution. Website

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. Website

Arthur Edison Professor GRA Eminent Scholar Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Genetics Metabolomics and systems biology of Caenorhabditis elegans using NMR, mass spec, and computational approaches. Website

Mark Farmer Professor Cellular Biology Protist systematics, cell evolution, and flagellar development. Website

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. Website

Spencer J. Fox Assistant Professor, Bioinformatics Understanding and forecasting infectious disease dynamics with the goal of improving public health outcomes and policies; specialize in integrating population-level infectious disease data with epidemiological models through statistical analysis and simulation; primarily work on respiratory viruses like influenza and COVID-19, among others. Website

Mandev S. Gill Assistant Professor, Institute of Bioinformatics Statistical and computational methods for phylodynamic inference. Website

Travis Glenn Professor Environmental Health Sciences; Bioinformatics; Toxicology Environmental Genomics; Crocodilians; Reptilian Genomics; Molecular Ecology. Website

Adam Greer Assistant Professor Marine Sciences Zooplankton ecology, predator-prey interactions, ocean biophysical coupling, plankton imaging and analysis Website

Brendan Hunt Associate Professor Entomology Behavioral and evolutionary genetics and epigenetics of social insects. Website

Natarajan Kannan Associate Professor Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Bioinformatics Evolutionary systems biology; protein kinase signaling in plants, pathogens and microbes. Evolution and classification of glycoenzymes. Website

Jessica Kissinger Distinguished Research Professor Bioinformatics; Genetics Parasite genomics and the biology of genome evolution. Website

Stacey L. Lance Associate Research Scientist Toxicology; Savannah River Ecology Laboratory Evolutionary toxicology, disease ecology, impacts of natural and anthropogenic stressors on freshwater vertebrates. Website

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. Website

Liang Liu Assistant Professor Bioinformatics Phylogenetics, evolutionary biology, statistics. Website

Wolfgang Lukowitz Associate Professor Plant Biology Fertilization, and early cell-fate decisions in plant embryos. Website

Joe McHugh Professor Entomology Evolution, systematics and anatomy of insects. Website

Douglas Menke Professor Genetics Developmental Regulation of Gene Expression; Evolution of Vertebrate Morphology. Website

Patricia Moore Professor Entomology The role of developmental mechanisms in sexual selection and the evolution of reproductive strategies in insects. Website

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. Website

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. Website

Kerry Oliver Associate Professor Entomology Ecology and evolution of heritable symbiosis in insects. Website

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. Website

Ben Parrott Assistant Professor Toxicology; Savannah River Ecology Laboratory Environmental and ecological influences on development, reproduction, and aging in wildlife and humans. Website

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. Website

Dan Peach Assistant Professor Infectious Diseases Dr Peach's research interests are in the field of vector ecology, with a focus on behavioral and sensory ecology. He is primarily focused on how arthropod vectors, such as mosquitoes, find and interact with resources such as the hosts they bite, the flowers they nectar-feed from (and pollinate) or …

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. Website

Pejman Rohani Regents' Professor Infectious Diseases The ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, including measles, pertussis, avian influenza, dengue and polio using computational modeling. Website

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. Website

Shayla Salzman Assistant Professor, Entomology Multi-modal signaling between plants and insects, evolution and mechanism of inter-species interactions. Techniques include insect behavior, chemical ecology, and phylogenetics. Website

Jaclyn Saunders Assistant Professor Marine Sciences Marine microbial ecology and evolution; oceanography, biogeochemistry, astrobiology, bioinformatics, big data analytics in environmental science Website

Bob Schmitz Professor Genetics Population epigenomics and mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance. Website

Amanda Spivak Associate Professor Marine Sciences Coastal ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry; ecosystem resilience to and recovery from disturbances; global change; carbon cycling Website

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. Website

Mike Strand Distinguished Research Professor Entomology Molecular and evolutionary biology of insect parasites; virology, immunology, symbiont evolution, reproduction. Website

Andrea Sweigart Professor Genetics Evolutionary genetics and genomics of natural plant populations. Website

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. Website

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. Website

Kevin Vogel Assistant Professor Entomology Integrating physiology, genomics, evolution, and microbial symbiosis to understand the biology of insect vectors of disease. Website

John Wares Professor Genetics Ecological genetics of natural populations. Website

Michael White Associate Professor Genetics Evolutionary Genomics and Sex Chromosome Evolution. Website

Patricia Yager Professor Marine Sciences Marine microbial ecology and biogeochemistry; climate change. Website

Kaixiong Ye Assistant Professor Genetics; Bioinformatics Nutritional Genomics; Human Genetics; Population and Quantitative Genomics; Gene-Diet Interaction during human evolution and in metabolic diseases; Website