ERC Starting Grant
I’m starting my own group!
Big news: I’ve been awarded an ERC Starting Grant! Next spring, I’ll be leaving Gainesville to start my own research group at Bonn University in Germany. My project “The Evolution of Wing Coloration in Lepidoptera” (EWINCOL) will explore one of evolution’s “mysteries of mysteries”: why do some lineages evolve into countless forms while others remain relatively similar? Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) are perfect for this, with their incredible taxonomic and phenotypic diversity.
EWINCOL will use AI to analyze millions of digitized museum specimens, mapping out the phenotypic space of wing color patterns. This will let me ask three big questions: Does more species richness mean more diversity in form? Does modularity drive diversification? How do environmental gradients shape variation? By combining these evolutionary, developmental, and ecological perspectives, I hope to uncover new insights into what drives biodiversity. I’m really excited to build an interdisciplinary team, and I’ll be announcing PhD and postdoc positions toward the second half of 2026.
