Currently: I am inferring evolutionary relationships within the butterfly tribe Danaini (Nymphalidae: Danainae) using anchored hybrid enrichment loci. The goal of this project is to develop a phylogenetic backbone for this group to enable downstream comparative work. Taxonomic sampling thus far includes ~90% of all described species, including a genus that has never been sequenced before.

Previously: Through collaborations, I have employed similar methods to investigate the systematics of the Pierid genera Eurema and Delias. I have also explored the systematics of Neotropical damselflies which lead to the reclassification of genera and 3 species and uncovered cryptic diversity within avian malaria parasites.

Island Biogeography

Currently: I am investigating how island isolation can structure morphological and genetic variation in the polymorphic Euploea mulciber butterfly using pattern analysis and low-coverage whole-genome data. I am interested in understanding how Pleistocene eustasy impacted gene flow on Southeast Asian islands and whether this can influence the wide variety of wing patterns seen among its ~30 subspecies.

To the left is a heatmap depicting the variation among the different forewing patterns of the sexually dimorphic Euploea mulciber subspecies. The commonality of each motif for each sex is denoted by color. Green colors represent motifs commonly shared among different wing patterns.

Currently: Museums are a valuable resource for biological research, and these data will become increasingly available through advancements in digitization, artificial intelligence, and sequencing technologies. I am collecting and analyzing images of butterflies from natural history collections to understand intraspecific variation in wing patterns of Euploea mulciber.

Previously: I analyzed the metadata from a large-scale anchored phylogenomics project to explore the relationships between DNA sequence capture and specimen preservation method/age. I found evidence to support that Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) methods can reliably generate sequence data from older specimens (including museum specimens). My research includes collection-based data such as transcribed information, specimen images, and historical DNA.