Old News

August 2011

The Edwards lab is joined by new graduate student Allison Shultz, who just completed a Master's degree at San Diego State University with Prof. Kevin Burns. Allison's interests are in evolutionary genetics and the evolution of avian coloration. July 2011
As President of the American Genetic Association, publisher of the Journal of Heredity, Scott organizes their annual meeting, held in Irapuato and Guanajuato, Mexico. This was only the second time the AGA has met outside the US and the meeting, which featured an opening day at the Laboratory of Genomics and Biodiversity in Irapuato, was attended by over 150 researchers.  April 2011Elaine Vo's study of historic trends in mercury accumulation in black-footed albatrosses appears in PNAS and recieves worldwide news coverage. See: Nature News, BBC, LiveScience, Earth Times, Harvard Gazette, and many othersMarch 2011
Former postdoctoral fellow Liang Liu accepts a faculty position in the Department of Statistics, University of Georgia. He will move from Delaware in August 2011. May 2011Graduate student Maude Baldwin recieves a prestigious NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant for her research entitled "Function and Evolution of Sweet Taste Receptors in Birds" March 2011Postdoctoral Fellow Matt Fujita accepts faculty position in the Department of Biology, University of Texas Arlington. In fact, he already has his web page up, even though he'll be with us for the last year of his NSF postdoctoral fellowship. Congraulations, Matt! February 2011
Former postdoctoral fellow Chris Balakrishnan accepts a faculty position in the Department of Biology at East Carolina University (ECU). ECU, a part of the University of North Carolina, is a doctoral institution with an enrollment of over 27,000 students and approximately 4,500 faculty and staff. It is the third largest campus in the North Carolina University system and is building its core programs in evolutionary biology. September 2010Beast Legends, a film project in which Scott plays one of four sleuthers trying to unmask the biological origins of mythological animals, makes its US debut on the Syfy Channel.
April 2010Harvard Center for the Environment Postdoc Susan Cameron accepts a faculty position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville.  February 2010Research Associate Andy Shedlock accepts a position of Assistant Professor of Genomics in the Deptartment of Biology, University of Charleston, a position held jointly with the Grice Marine Laboratory and The Medical University of South Carolina's Center for Marine Biomedicine and Environmental Sciences (MBES) DAAD Postdoctoral Fellow Clemens Kuepper arrives from the UK to continue his work on global phylogeography and mating system evolution in shorebirdsDecember 2009We are pleased to welcome postdoctoral fellow Niclas Backström to the laboratory. Niclas recently completed a PhD on evolutionary genetics of flycatchers at Uppsala University in Sweden in Hans Ellengren's lab, and will focus on evolutionary genomics of House Finches here at Harvard.  October 2009Postdoctoral fellow Liang Liu accepts a position as Assistant Profesor in the Deprtment of Agriculture and Natural Science at Delaware State University. He will begin in January 2010. We welcome to the lab new postdocs Matt Fujita and Frank Rheindt and sabbatical visitor Bei An. September 2009Chris Organ and colleagues publish new finings on the evolution of extinct marine reptiles in Nature. August 2009The lab bids farewell to Camille Bonneaud, who was awarded a prestigous 4-year fellowship from CNRSEdwards lab scores two new collaborative grants from NSF: Plumage evolution and gene expression in House Finches (with Geoff Hill) and Olfactory and chemosensory mechanisms of behavior in Leach's Storm Petrels with Gabrielle Nevitt. May 2009Along with Bono and Nelson Mandela (but without quite as much fanfare!), Scott gets elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. See news story. The Edwards lab looks forward to new members: Matt Fujita (PhD UC Berkeley) will join the lab as a NSF Postoctoral Fellow in Bioinformatics in July 2009. Shane Campbell-Staton (BS, University of Rochester) will join the lab as a graduate student in OEB/MCZ in the fall. April 2009Graduate student June Lee receives a NSF dissertation improvement grant entitled "Molecular Evolution of Reproductive genes in Australian fairy wrens (Maluridae) Postdoctoral Fellow Miguel Alcaide arrives from the Estacion Biologica de Donana in Seville, Spain, to pursue work in avian immunogenomics Postdoctoral Fellow Dan Janes scores cover of Journal of Heredity for his paper on recombination and nucleotide diversity in Emus  Andrew Shedlock contributes to a new book on the TimeTree of Life from Oxford University Press February 2009Scott speaks to 400 high school students at Darwin Day at the National Museum of Natural History January 2009Edwards Lab awarded $35,000 from Harvard University's Milton Fund to support Camille Bonneaud's work on 454 transcriptome characterization of House Finch spleen November 2008Graduate student June Lee receives the cover of the journal Evolution for his study of multilocus phylogeography in the red-backed wren September 2008Dr. Susan Cameron joins the Edwards lab as a Fellow of the Harvard Center for the Environment Scott contributes to new book on early drawings of John James Audubon published by Harvard University Press August 2008The Edwards lab is co-funded with Dr. Garth Spellman on a recently awarded NSF grant on phylogeograpy of birds in pine-oak woodlands of North America Postdoc Dan Janes and the Edwards lab are co-funded with Nicole Valenzuela on a recently awarded NSF grant on the evolution of sex chromosomes in turtles June 2008Graduating senior Elaine Vo is honored with a Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for her senior thesis on temporal trends and evolutionary genetics of mercury tolerance in Black-footed Albatrosses Postdoc Liang Liu wins the prestigious publisher's award from the Society of Systematic Biologists for best paper published in Systematic Biology in 2007 from a graduate student dissertation (Syst. Biol. 56: 504).  May 2008

We welcome into the world postdoc Patricia Brito's new baby, Ana Margarida, born 1 May 2008.Click here for some pictures   May 2008Postdoc Chris Organ leads study published in Science on phylogenetic analysis of T. rex and mastadon collagen. See Organ's web site and write-up in the Harvard GazetteScott, postdoc Liang Liu, and collaborator Dennis Pearl of The Ohio State University are awarded a 3-year NSF grant to continue developing models to analyze multilocus phylogenomic DNA sequence data. Title: DEB-0743616: Estimating species trees from multilocus DNA sequence data Nineteen undergraduates from 11 states and Puerto Rico are awarded Undergraduate Diversity fellowships to attend the annual meetings of the Society for Systematic Biologists and the Society for the Study of Evolution in Minneapolis. Click here for details of program.  February 2008Postdoc Camille Bonneaud co-authors study on sexual conflict in Anolis lizardsUndergraduate Elaine Vo publishes her field research on Caribbean fisheries in the Harvard Undergraduate Research Journal January 2008Postdocs Dan Janes and Chris Organ, in collaboration with Nicole Valenzuela of Iowa State University, organize a symposium on reptile genomics for the 2008 meetings of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Postdoc Chris Balakrishnan assumes a NIH-funded postdoc at the University of Illinois to study gene expression evolution in Zebra Finches Jan 2007

• Chris Organ's work on genome evolution in birds and dinosaurs is accepted to Nature! To appear sometime this spring.
  November-December 2006