Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Doctoral Program

Spotlight – Brian Davis

Welcome to EEB’s newest Associate Faculty member!

Brian W. Davis is a Research Assistant Professor of Genomics in the Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences in the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine, and the founder of the Exotic Genome Repository.

Brian received his Ph.D. from  Texas A&M University where he focused on the genomics of speciation using hybrid felines as a model for reproductive isolation. Shortly after, he founded a multi-institutional biobank for the preservation of tissues from animals under veterinary surveillance in the US. He then joined the National Human Genome Research Institute’s Comparative Genomics and Cancer Genetics branches as a postdoc where he focused on natural/artificial selection and the burden of deleterious variation in multiple post-domestication and wild animal species. Focused heavily on big-data genomics and genome evolution, his research at Texas A&M focuses on integrating models of heritable disease across diverse species.

Spotlight: Erin Buchholz

EEB student Erin Buchholz recently received the Vice President for Research: Excellence in Research Special Award during Student Research Week 2019.

This award honors the very best research achievement at Texas A&M University by an undergraduate and graduate student. Applicants must demonstrate excellence in research through complexity and originality of topic, precision of research methods, correctness of information, expertise in subject area, clear communication, and well thought implications/impacts for the field or future.

Congratulations, Erin!

Spotlight: Christina Berlanger

Meet our newest core faculty member and paleontologist from Geology & Geophysics!  Dr. Berlanger’s research interests are biotic responses to environmental change; paleoecology; and paleoenvironments.

Dr. Christina Belanger was an undergraduate at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in the College of Creative Studies. Belanger had an emphasis in Biology, but also took core geology courses as a paleontology-driven student. Belanger did undergraduate research on Pleistocene molluscan fossils preserved in the Isla Vista Cliffs that extended along the coastline walking distance from campus. UCSB is also where Belanger started working with foraminifera – single-celled protists that make calcareous shells, which preserve well in marine sediments – to reconstruct paleoclimate.

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Spotlight: Daniel Spalink

Daniel Spalink is EEB’s newest Core Faculty member and an Assistant Professor of Plant Systematics in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at Texas A&M University and Director of the S.M. Tracy Herbarium (TAES).

Daniel received his Ph.D. from the Department of Botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied the ecological and biogeographical diversification of the sedge family, Cyperaceae. He then conducted a postdoc at UW-Madison, where he studied the biogeography and diversification of the orchid family (Orchidaceae) and the spatial structure of phylogenetic diversity in the Wisconsin flora. Before joining the faculty at Texas A&M University, Daniel conducted a second postdoc at the University of Utah, where he studied the genomic structure of phylogenetic discordance in the pepper tribe, Capsiceae.

Welcome Daniel!

Spotlight: Leila Siciliano-Martina

Student Spotlight:  Leila Siciliano-Martina is a third year PhD student interested in evolutionary changes in the morphology of mammal species due to anthropogenic drivers. She has a masters degree in zoology from Michigan State University, where she studied maternal relationships and stress behaviors in captive giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis).