Really cool viral phylodynamics work from our postdoc! Check it out!!

I'm excited to share that our latest paper is now out in PNAS! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... It was a pleasure working with @landismj.bsky.social and Ammon Thompson on this project, developing a new phylogenetic model for infectious disease transmission with realistic host movement dynamics. #evobio

I’m recruiting a PhD student to join our lab in the fall of 2027. If you’re excited about phylogenetics, comp bio, paleobiology, stats theory, macroevolution, etc. please get in touch! Folks at #Evol2026, you can talk to @brpetrucci.bsky.social & @sigournie.bsky.social to learn more about our lab

Our lab has several #Evolution2026 presentations this year! Topics include SSE models, character maps, ancestral states, and deep learning Presenters: Raymond Castillo (@raymondcast.bsky.social), Sean McHugh (@phyllurus.bsky.social), Anna Nagel, Albert Soewongsono (@albertchristian.bsky.social)

Had a great post-SSB hackathon with the RevBayes crew! Got tons of work done on both RevBayes and RevGadgets! Special thanks to @trayc7.bsky.social @jembrown.bsky.social for organizing and hosting!

The wonderful Emily Graslie talking to the #SSB2026 crowd about the importance of natural history museums. She has an art background and became enamored with the University of Montana natural history collections and created the #brainscoop series.

I am still actively looking for postdoc positions — please lmk if you (or your friends and colleagues) need a hardworking postdoc with field, lab, and bioinformatic skills! I am broadly interested in evolution in the ocean, conservation and population genetics, and rapid evolution.

Successfully added a few letters to my name last month!!! Truly could not have done this with our villages upon villages 🫶🏼

Overheard a conversation from an UG walking on campus. They said "I don't think I could have done my degree without AI". It's somewhat frightening the reliance some have on AI and I'm uncertain of its increased use at universities, but maybe i'm becoming the old man shaking his fist...

I am so happy to have successfully proposed my dissertation chapters! Despite how nervous I was, it went over so well and all of my committee members are so incredibly helpful!

As you are making your schedule for the last day of #Evol2025 don’t forget to add Nicolás Castillo’s talk about Puya character displacement. Puya are the most amazing plant in the Páramo ecosystem and their macroevolution is incredible.

Last but not least, I will be sharing some work on a model I have been developing for chromosome evolution today! Be there or be square! I'll be presenting at 4:45 in Phylogenetic Theory! #Evol2025

Also, if you missed their poster last night, Sarah Swiston, will be presenting their work on elipse modeling for biogeographic range evolution! (EMPIRE)

Alright #Evol2025 folks, we got a ton of talks today! Gabriel Garcia, a visiting PhD student from Brazil, will be sharing his work on ecological traits driving diversification in bats!

Today another postdoc in the Landis lab, @albertchristian.bsky.social, will be giving a talk during the machine learnering and new inference algorithm section at 3:15! If you are particularly partial to island biogeography you definitely dont wanna miss this one! #Evol2025

Be sure to check out Anna Nagel's talk today in Molecular evolution II! Really cool work on estimating mutation ages and population origins in structured populations! #Evol2025

Had a fantastic time at the mole 2025 workshop in Woods Hole! I am so grateful to meet such amazing scientists! Although times are difficult and uncertain now, engaging with professors and students who are still working so hard to teach and learn despite recent hardships is truly uplifting.

It's back! The Society of Systematic Biologists is running Year 3 of the Mentorship Program! Find community, support your colleagues, and talk trees. Apply by June 10th, 2025. Program info: www.systbio.org/mentorship-p... Application form: forms.gle/QtD22C9dtfRF... @systbiol.bsky.social

This is bad. Read the updates. www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

Totally forgot to update: I PASSED!!!!!! A small win after a lot of despairing the past few months with the political climate :')

Qualifying exam in a couple hours! Once it's over with I'll have to figure out a different way to distract myself from the existential dread that is US politics

The recording of last week's #PolyploidyWebinar featuring @raymondcast.bsky.social and @erichagen.bsky.social is now up! youtu.be/zmUyTO3jN6s

Join us on Wednesday, April 2 at 11 AM Pacific Time for the next #PolyploidyWebinar! The last webinar of the 24-25 season will feature @raymondcast.bsky.social and @erichagen.bsky.social! Sign up (if not already!) to get the zoom: www.barkerlab.net/polyweb

@standupforscience.bsky.social in St. Louis!

SHARE WIDELY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. With mass deportations starting today across the country, it is vitally important - for both citizens and non-citizens - to know your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Assert it. You have the right to a lawyer. Ask for one. (1/3)

list comprehensions may never make 100% sense to me but at least the work 💀

Earlier this year my advisor @landismj.bsky.social and I published this cool work at BMB; looking at applying diffusion in macroevolutionary context for state-dependent diversification models to learn about evolutionary patterns that these models produce. #evobio www.smb.org/news/13402507

Bayesian Least-Squares Supertrees (BLeSS): flexible inference of large time-calibrated phylogenies https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.11.29.625936v1

Join us on Wednesday, December 4, at 11 AM PST for the next #PolyploidyWebinar! This month we have Pam & Doug Soltis presenting on the Polyploid Integration Institute and @trevorfaske.bsky.social on analyses of mixed-ploidy data! Sign up (if not already!) to get the zoom: www.barkerlab.net/polyweb

Here's a starter pack for early career researchers in evolutionary biology. I prioritized the most-junior folks, and this list quickly filled up with undergrads, grad students, and postdocs. Might do another list later, but I'm tired. Have fun everyone! 🐒 #evobio go.bsky.app/MzND7nX

time for end of semester despair yippee!

One of my peers and I are thinking of teaching a statistics nano-course for people in ecology and evolution, what are some statistical tests that you feel are important to your research?

also I am a queer latino whose grandparents immigrated from mexico so if that bothers you, i simply do not care! 😌

Hi to all new mutuals and fellow scientists fleeing twitter! Figure I should have a post about who I am! I am a phd student at WashU in the landis lab, developing phylogenetic methods! I am primarily interested in modeling chromosome evolution using SSE models!

Join us on Wednesday, November 6, at 11 AM PST for the the next #PolyploidyWebinar! Sylvia Kinosian and Tamsen Dunn will present. The zoom link will be emailed out before the talks - sign up here if you have not signed up before! www.barkerlab.net/polyweb

Evolutionary rescue during extreme drought https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.10.24.619808v1

Join us tomorrow for the first #PolyploidyWebinar of the 2024-2025 series!

Alright gonna try reading Felsenstein for the first time... wish me luck🫡

Join us on Wednesday, October 2, at 11AM PDT for the first #PolyploidyWebinar of the season! @shellygaynor.bsky.social and @pairoflogs.bsky.social will lead us off! The zoom link will be emailed out before the talks - sign up here if you have not signed up before! forms.gle/Bp3VUGeP9nAc...

"Concepts of a plan" is the perfect way of summing up my past couple months with my research projects