Research Interests

Early life, protein evolution, evolutionary theory

Like most species, most proteins that ever existed are now extinct. Compensating for this, most proteins that exist now do not date back to the primordial soup, but were instead born de novo at some later time from non-coding sequences. By identifying proteins that were born before the genetic code included all 20 of its current amino acids, we are working to deduce the nature of very early protein-based life, including any connections to measurements from the asteroid Bennu.

I am a Professor in the department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and am a member of Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs (GIDP) in Applied Math, Genetics, and Statistics, the Biochemistry and Cellular Molecular Biology graduate program, and the minor in Astrobiology. I am also a member of the BIO5 Institute.