Joanna Masel

I am interested in lots of different stuff, please browse the research links and my publications! I don’t run a wet lab, so all these projects involve mathematics, simulations, downloading and analyzing pre-existing data, or all of the above. I try to work on systems where theoretical models can give insights that just wouldn’t be available any other way, and then to link these models to data. This means we often approach existing datasets with questions and hypotheses that other people aren't thinking about.

I build models that explicitly capture mechanistic constraints, whether from biochemistry, genetics, cellular biology, physiology, or ecology, and work out their evolutionary consequences. Sometimes this takes me in unexpected directions, e.g. my theoretical studies of the robustness and evolvability of biological systems led me to empirical work on the origins of coding sequences from non-coding ancestors, to unexpected empirical findings on long-term trends in protein evolution. The latter led to an active interest in astrobiology in my lab today, with a focus on reconstructing early life. My lab also has theoretical interests about genetic "load", and the tension between relative and absolute competitions in evolution, ecology, and economics.

I am a Professor in the department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, and am a member of Graduate Interdisciplinary Programs (GIDP) in Applied Math, Genetics, and Statistics, the Biochemistry and Cellular Molecular Biology graduate program, and the Astrobiology minor. I am also a member of the BIO5 Institute.