Research Projects
Overview
I have worked on a variety of species and research projects, but the common theme that ties everything together is the focus on population genetics and management of natural populations. Whether the aim is to increase population size or to better understand population dynamics to reduce disease incidence, I have been focused on how to ethically and responsibly alter these populations to have the desired beneficial effects for humans while reducing negative environmental impacts.
Projects
I examined the evolution of insecticide resistance in the mosquito that transmits zika and dengue viruses, Aedes aegypti. This project gave us a greater understanding of how insecticide resistance develops in wild populations. I showed that pyrethroid resistance developed very quickly, due to extreme selection pressure and partial dominance of the resistance mutations.
For the second project I am collaborating with a graduate student in economics at NC State University to elucidate the bio-economic landscape for maize weevil in southern Mexico. We aim to determine environmental and cultural drivers of grain damage by maize weevil, to discern the impacts of maize weevil on rural farm households, and to measure the genetic differentiation of wild-caught maize weevils across southern Mexico.
I worked with an incredibly talented interdisciplinary team of graduate students to publish scholarship on the complexities which may exist when developing and deploying gene drive insects in agricultural settings.
Striped bass, Morone saxatilis, is a popular sport fishing species that had been extirpated from the Ashley River, South Carolina. For my master's research I used genetic techniques to evaluated several stocking strategies aimed at reestablishing a population of striped bass in the river.