Ariane Thomas successfully defended her dissertation in April 2024. Ariane moved to Maryland in May for a postdoc position at the National Institutes of Health. She will investigate the genetic architecture that controls for body size variation in modern dog populations. She is currently collaborating with Pamunkey and Chickahominy Indian Tribes and the Pawnee Nation to study their relationships with their dogs.
Mack Cross, Dani Johnson and Tristan Szymanski received their MAs this year!
Two of our undergrads, Gabriella Snyder and Seren Castellano, were selected as Latham Scholars, an initiative designed to train undergrads in science communication methods. They each completed projects in 2024 to engage the public on topics related to evolution.
Gabriella designed a science communication game. She describes her project: "Biological evolution, particularly human evolution, continues to be a misconstrued topic in the public psyche. These erroneous beliefs often take root in adolescence. My project, rEVOLUTIONary: the competition towards humanity, aims to counteract these beliefs and foster evolution's scientific veracity. To do so, I created an interactive and immersive board game about human evolution for middle schoolers. I hosted game nights for this project, where players encountered unexpected outcomes and challenged their opponents as they battled to evolve to a human the fastest."
The Human Evolutionary Lab examines viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and H5N1, bacteria like Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and parasites such as Leishmania infantum.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Lineage specific histories of Mycobacterium tuberculosis dispersal in Africa and Eurasia
In trans variant calling reveals enrichment for compound heterozygous variants in genes involved in neuronal development and growth
Unlocking pandemic potential: prevalence and spatial patterns of key substitutions in avian influenza H5N1 in Egyptian isolates
Global expansion of Mycobacterium tuberculosis lineage 4 shaped by colonial migration and local adaptation
Ariane Thomas, a PhD candidate with the Evolutionary Anthropology Lab, studies colonial impacts and phenotypic diversity of North American dog populations.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
The Dogs of Tsenacomoco: Ancient DNA Reveals Presence of Local Dogs at Jamestown Colony in Early Seventeenth Century
NEWS
Remains of ancient, Indigenous dogs found at Jamestown, as well as proof people ate them
Bones of ancient native dogs found at Jamestown
Jamestown colonists may have kept, eaten indigenous American dogs
Jamestown colonist killed and ate the dogs of Indigenous Americans
Remains of Ancient American Dogs Identified at Jamestown
What happened to North America's first dogs?
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