People

Interested in joining?

We’re always looking for biologists, computer scientists, and statisticians who are interested in modeling evolutionary processes. Please contact Michael to ask about Postdoctoral, PhD Student (Biology or CS), and Undergraduate research opportunities. Messages from those seeking independent support through research fellowships are also most welcome. In your email, please share a statement of your research interests and/or your CV.

Fellowships:
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship
NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology
Living Earth Collaborative Postdoctoral Fellowship
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellowship

Lab Values & Expectations
Read this document to learn more about the expectations and values our lab shares.

Current members


Michael Landis [CV]
Principal Investigator
I'm interested in learning how evolutionary processes behave and how Earth's biodiversity has changed over time. My research generally involves designing phylogenetic models of evolution, programming inference methods, and analyzing simulated and biological datasets.

Fábio Kuriki Mendes
Postdoctoral Researcher (joined 2021)
I wish to learn how biological groups evolve different genotypes and phenotypes while diversifying in time and space. My research brings us closer to this goal by enabling integrative evolutionary inference -- I develop (and use) phylogenetic models that can leverage different types of data across evolutionary timescales. *Starting a new faculty position at LSU in Fall 2024.*

Albert Christian Soewongsono
Postdoctoral Researcher (joined 2023)
I am an applied mathematician who is interested in developing models for the evolution of species. In my research, I have developed evolutionary models with process that depends on different factors, such as species age, time, and spatial information. My current research interest lies in developing evolutionary models that consider species interaction with their changing environmental conditions.

Ammon Thompson
Postdoctoral Researcher (joined 2021)
I'm an evolutionary biologist who is interested in transcriptome evolution and phylogenetic inference. Currently, I am developing research methods for to infer viral phylodynamics as a visiting research scientist with ORISE in collaboration with the Landis group.

Sarah Swiston
Graduate Student (joined 2021)
I’m interested in phylogenetic methods for inferring the historical processes behind spatial and temporal patterns of diversity, and applying these methods to real and simulated data. *Funded by NSF GRFP.*

Sean McHugh
Graduate Student (joined 2022)
Sean is interested in herpetology and the evolution of ecological niches.

Lilja Quinn
Undergraduate Student (joined 2023)
Lilja is interested in human evoluton and social evolution.

Tanvi Gorre
Undergraduate Student (joined 2023)
Tanvi is interested in cancer evolution and molecular evolution.

Past members


Mariana Braga
Postdoctoral Researcher (2019 to 2021)

Mariana is now a postdoc at Uppsala Univ. and Univ. of Helsinki with a Swedish International Postdoc Fellowship.

Walker Sexton
Undergraduate Researcher (2020 to 2023)

Walker is now pursuing a Master's degree in the Höhna Lab at LMU Munich.

Mihir Shah
Undergraduate Researcher (2021 to 2023)


Sunny Yuan
Undergraduate Researcher (2022 to 2023)


Ernie Ramos
Undergraduate Researcher (2020 to 2021)

Ernie is now applying to graduate programs in Statistics.