What is Quantitative Evolutionary Microbiology?

Our lab studies Quantitative Evolutionary Microbiology, which means we study how microbes grow, interact, and evolve using quantitative approaches. Here we further break this down to show why this is an important area of science.

Why microbiology?

Microbes are microscopic organisms (all bacteria and archaea and some eukaryotes) and are the most ancient and abundant form of life on Earth. They underlie every ecosystem on the planet, ranging from soil to the ocean to deep underground. In particular, they form critical ecosystems in and on the human body, sometimes causing disease but often mediating many healthy processes such as our digestive systems. Microbes also serve as powerful tools for biotechnology, making products ranging from drugs to wine to biofuels. Therefore the biology of microbes is important to just about everything in our world.

Why evolutionary?

Evolution is the process of change in the genetic composition of a population. It is the organizing principle of biology — all biological systems are products of evolutionary processes, and therefore our understanding of those processes is crucial to making sense of those systems. While we often think of evolutionary processes occurring over millions of years, microbes can undergo significant evolutionary change in just a few days or weeks due to their rapid rates of growth and mutation, as well as their large population sizes. For example, microbes exposed to antibiotics can evolve resistance to them in mere days. Therefore the dynamics of evolutionary change is an essential aspect of all microbial communities.

Why quantitative?

Numbers matter. For many important questions in biology, we care not just that X causes Y, but how much X causes how much Y. For example, it’s not good enough to know that a microbial population can evolve resistance to an antibiotic — we need to know how much resistance evolves and how rapidly. These quantitative questions are central to our lab’s research. As a corollary of this, we also invest significant effort in thinking about how to best quantify biological properties, such as fitness, interactions, and ecological diversity. We believe careful definitions are crucial for performing reliable experiments and rigorous statistical analyses, as well as establishing reproducibility of results across the scientific community.

What does our lab value?

Science that matters

We strive to do science that moves forward the scientific community, especially on topics that are understudied but have the potential for large impacts. We are especially interested in targeting aspects of microbiology where new scientific knowledge can lead to improved treatments or diagnostics for human health.

Diversity of people, ideas, and approaches

We believe that different perspectives promote more innovative ideas and approaches. Our group comes from many different personal backgrounds — such as different countries — as well as scientific backgrounds, including physics, ecology and evolution, systems biology, mathematics, and food science. We are therefore always eager to work with people who bring new perspectives, questions, and systems!

Inclusive work environment

We believe in maintaining a welcoming and supportive work environment for anyone who wants to contribute to our scientific goals. We greatly value a positive work culture where we support each other in our scientific, educational, and professional goals regardless of our personal identities or background.