Dr. Christopher L. Parkinson
Principal Investigator
Current Positions:
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Professor, Dept. of Biological Sciences & Dept. of Forestry and Environmental Conservation, Clemson University
Previous Positions:
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Professor, Dept. of Biology, University of Central Florida (UCF)
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Special Assistant to the Provost on Faculty Cluster Initiatives, UCF
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Chair, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), Office of Research and Commercialization, UCF
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Provosts Faculty Fellow, Academic Affairs, UCF
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Associate Professor, Dept. of Biology, UCF
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Assistant Professor, Dept. of Biology, UCF
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Post-Doctoral Fellow, Section of Amphibians and Reptiles, Carnegie Museum of Natural History
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Post-Doctoral Fellow, Dept. of Biology, Indiana University
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Ph.D., University of Louisville, Environmental Biology, 1996.
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B.S. and B.S., Ohio University, Wildlife Biology and Field Botany, 1990.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Jason L. Strickland
Postdoctoral Researcher
My research interest lies at the intersection of phylogeography and trait evolution. I am interested in understanding how shared ancestry effects trait evolution within a species and among closely related species. My current work involves transcriptomics and genomics to understand the evolution of venom variability in venomous taxa by comparing the relative importance of sequence and expression variability. The common theme in the research projects I am working on is the use of phylogenetics to understand evolutionary processes
Ph.D. Students
Rhett M. Rautsaw, M.S.
Ph.D. Student
My interests lie at the intersection of evolutionary genetics and ecology. I am interested in trait evolution and ecological genomics; understanding how changes in the environment and niche space shape the genome and how selection acts to maintain these phenotypes. I hope to focus my career on convergent evolution to understand how similar phenotypes evolve across evolutionary distant lineages. Reaching these objectives require the combination of ecological, genetic, and geospatial data in order to fully understand the mechanisms driving distant taxa to occupy such similar niches.
Ramses Rosales
Ph.D. Student
Coming soon!
M.S. Students
Tristan Schramer
M.S. Student
Coming Soon! Natricines?
Jade Mellor
M.S. Student
Broadly speaking I'm interested in biodiversity and where traits are located spatially and why. I am currently working on a project involving the potential presence of a Mojave Toxin homolog in Crotalus lepidus. I plan to use computational methods to see how this homolog was introduced to the population and where it is geographically located.