I am hiring a popgen postdoc!

Looking for a creative scientist to join us at USC to investigate recessive variation and complex traits in model or non-model species. The project is funded by a multi-year NIH grant, contract can be renewed.

Job add & details 👇🏽

usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-ange...

We are looking for a postdoc to help with a project on eelgrass genomics, in collaboration with the O'Connor and Rieseberg labs at UBC - see ad here tinyurl.com/2yd487p4! Come and join us in beautiful Vancouver 🌊🌾🏔️

a painting of uncle sam pointing at the viewer with an american flag behind him ALT: a painting of uncle sam pointing at the viewer with an american flag behind him

It's looking increasingly likely that I'll be hiring a 3-year computational pop-gen postdoc/PhD-level scientific programmer to start this Fall (2026). If you or someone you know is defending soon, and looking for a position, please DM/write to me! Thanks!

Spread the word! UChicago BSD is currently searching for an instructional professor (open rank) to help develop and support graduate training in quantitative biology at UChicago. This is an Instructional Professor position (open rank). apply.interfolio.com/183517.

New from our group, led by Nick Collier:

Whoa—machine learning strikes again (in a good way)

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Repeatability of adaptation in interacting species www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...

serendipitous listening/scrolling matching

New preprint! We sequenced 175 'Alalā (Hawaiian crow) genomes to understand why >50% of eggs fail to hatch in a species recovered from just 9 individuals. What we found was a both exciting and surprising. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Seasonal fluctuations in fitness result in severe reductions in effective population size www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Recombination and the role of pseudo-overdominance in polyploid evolution Abstract. Natural selection is an imperfect force that can under some conditions fail to prevent the buildup of deleterious mutations. Small population siz

It took forever but my last paper as an academic is finally out. ironically this paper probably has the smallest audience, but I believe is my most impactful work. I think it provides some nice support for theories on polyploid origins, and has practical implications in crops and conservation

Delighted to see our work on the cover of Systematic Biology!! We introduce an approach for analyzing pairwise-defined traits (e.g. 'strength of RI', 'diet niche overlap') in a phylogenetically informed context (R package 'phylopairs' now on CRAN). Read it here: academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic...

Introgression across ploidies contributes to genetic diversity in introduced urban Capsella bursa-pastoris www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Attention to people living in Illinois, Chicago: you have until Thursday to register a formal message to the state legislature that requiring age verification to install Linux is a horrible idea. This doesn't require writing anything, just filling out a form. Click through this quoted post:

Anything since like 2010 happened a few years ago

1/11 🔥 New preprint alert 🔥
We wanted to know what plants in the wild really care about. So we asked them 🎤.
Here is what we learned: “Biotic-response networks are an important organizer of the transcriptome in wild Arabidopsis thaliana populations”
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Upcoming seminar in the @eseb.bsky.social Internal Conflicts and Organismal Adaptation Special Topics Network

Really looking forward to Tuesday next week, March 17, when we have @mobilepurin.bsky.social and @manishamuna.bsky.social presenting.

Join us!

Zoom links etc in the post below.

bedder-manuscript.v10 Bioinformatics, 2026, 0–0 doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/xxxxx Advance Access Publication Date: DD Month YYYY Genome Analysis Genome Analysis bedder: flexible genome interval intersection with user-defi...

Brent Pedersen, Mitchell Vollger and I have "posted" our preprint of the manuscript describing bedder, a complement to the functionality of bedtools. The "preprint server" we have chosen is google docs because it was rejected by biorxiv.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Transposable elements contribute substantially to naturally occurring genetic lethality in Drosophila melanogaster Recessive lethal mutations are common and often persist at unexpectedly high frequencies due to diverse mutational causes. This study shows that many lethal alleles in Drosophila melanogaster arise…

In a new study, Sarah Marion &co use genetic mapping and whole genome sequencing in wild #Drosophila to reveal the genetic basis of naturally occurring lethal mutations and introduce a new model that could explain their frequencies in natural populations.
🧪 #genetics

Sexually antagonistic environments and the stability of environmental sex determination www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03...

Introgression and parental conflict shape repeated occurrences of postzygotic isolation in Mimulus Postzygotic reproductive isolation is often thought to accumulate as a byproduct of neutral divergence. Yet it frequently evolves rapidly, in line wit…

I am SO THRILLED to share our first fully-lab lab paper!!!!!! Led by @hybridzones.bsky.social & @hagarsoliman.bsky.social, w/ a major assist from @pfschwarz.bsky.social!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read more below, if you're curious (you should be- it's AWESOME!!!!!!!)

link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Have you ever wondered how many archaic populations contributed DNA to modern humans? We know about Neanderthals and Denisovans, but the fossil and genetic evidence suggests a much more complex history!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Amy Goldberg, PhD - Join The Goldberg lab is moving to UCLA summer 2025, and recruiting postdocs and graduate students. We are a computational lab with occasional wet lab or field collaborators. We will be located in the Depa...

The Goldberg lab at UCLA is hiring one or more postdocs. Flexible start date.

We develop methods to study population genetics of humans, our primate relatives, and our pathogens.

www.goldberglab.org/join

@pratikkatte.bsky.social and I just released Lorax 🌲, a tool for interactive exploration of biobank-scale ancestral recombination graphs (ARGs).

If you’ve ever wanted to scroll across the ancestries of thousands of genomes… this is for you.

Our paper is out in @Science! The Atlantic silverside spans Earth's steepest latitudinal gradient in coastal sea-surface temperature. Despite high gene flow, populations show clinal genetic variation in multiple locally adapted traits. doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Excited to share our new preprint! 🍇🧬

We analyzed 639 genomes across 48 grape species to understand how hybridization drives adaptation.

• ~14% of average Vitis genome is introgressed

• Most parallel adaptations are shared via gene flow

• Two "hybrid species" are actually hybrid swarms

So excited to share this manuscript led by the inimitable Cara Brand, who discovered that Topoisomerase II evolution causes hybrid female lethality in Drosophila.

Congrats to Cara, @nickbr0wn.bsky.social, Anirban, and
@buszczaklab.bsky.social!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Adaptive evolution of Topoisomerase II triggers reproductive isolation in Drosophila www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

The Guerrero Lab at NC State University seeks a postdoc in computational evolutionary genetics. Ideal candidates have quantitative skills. Apply by March 10, 2026, via rfguerre@ncsu.edu. More info: rguerrer.org #postdoc

I am seeking a postdoc to join my group at UCLA -- ideally the candidate would have some experience in either population genetics or microbes/microbiome (computational background needed). We have a range of projects and are happy to tailer to your interests. Please dm/email me if interested.