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.

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 fascinated by the evolution of ecological niches, reptile diversity, and all things coffee-related.

Raymond Castillo

Graduate Student (joined 2024)

I am broadly interested in modeling diversity over evolutionary timescales, currently focusing on chromosome evolution. Outside of science, you can find me playing my favorite TTRPGs, playing volleyball, or taking pictures of my cats! Funded by NSF GRFP.

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.

Visiting members

Matheus Pontes Nogueira

Graduate Student (joined 2023)

Matheus is an expert in viper systematics and biogeography, visiting from Universidade Federal do ABC in Brazil, and is researching how vipers spread and diversified throughout the ecoregions of North and South America.

Past members

Fábio Kuriki Mendes

Postdoctoral Researcher (2021 to 2024)

Fábio is now an Assistant Professor at LSU.

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. She will begin as an Assistant Professor at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in 2025.