Oakley Lab Members Past and Present

Todd Oakley - Assistant Professor, PhD. Duke University

My research involves comparisons of independent evolutionary transitions such as convergence, parallelism, duplication, and homoplasy. Such transitions provide an element of replicability within the singular history of life, and can yield insight into the most general evolutionary questions. For example, when and why do the same molecular or developmental changes underlie similar - though independent - evolutionary changes? What are the fates of duplicated genes, and what causes them to diversify or retain old functions? How can we even determine what is an independent evolutionary event?

Ajna Rivera, PhD. Post Doctoratal Researcher 2006-present.

Ajna in interested in evolution and development. After finishing her PhD at Berkeley investigating leech segmentation, she joined our lab where she is investigating the evolution of radical sexual dimorphism in Philomedid ostracods. Males have large compound eyes but females have only a rudimentary structure of unknown function. Ajna is constructing a phylogeny for the group and is learning about the developmental genetics of the dimorphism.

She wants to understand how similar genomes (male and female) can produce such radically different phenotypic outcomes. Females Philomedids can be considered a model for how genes used for a structure (compound eye) can be present in the absence of the structure itself.

Ajna's name is the Sanskrit word for the "third eye" chakra. Considering our lab studies eye duplication, we think she might've been destined to end up here.

	David Plachetzki - PhD Student
	David joined the lab in fall 2004. He is interested in Evo-Devo, especially the evolution of eyes and the nervous system. He is addressing hypotheses about the evolutionary origins of phototransduction in animals. David discovered a whole new clade of opsin genes in Cnidarians, and he is currently examining hypotheses about the phototransduction cascade associated with those opsins.

	Sabrina Pankey - PhD Student
	Sabrina joined the lab in fall 2007 after working with Rick Grosberg at Davis as an undergrad, and John Wares at University of Georgia as a lab tech. She is interested in the evolution of extraocular photoreceptors in cephalopods.

	Matt Harms - Undergraduate Student
	Matt is interested in physiology and regeneration. He's working on an honor's thesis, characterizing opsin genes in the cnidarian Hydra.

Dearly Departed Lab Members

Jeanne M. Serb, PhD. Post Doctoratal Researcher 2003-2005. Currently Asst. Prof. Iowa State Univ.

Jeanne won a President's Postdoctoral fellowship to study eye evolution and development here at UCSB. She published some nice papers on phylogeny, duplication, evo-devo, and eye evolution. She developed a new system for studying the evolution of asymmetry in scallops before moving on to accept a faculty position at Iowa State University.

Jeanne's Iowa State Link

	Shigetaka Yamaguchi, PhD. Post Doctoratal Researcher 2003-2005.
	Shige studied molecular phylogeny of Ostracoda.

	Oive Tinn , PhD. Post Doctoral Researcher 2004-2005.
	Oive is a paleontologist from Estonia. She won an NSF-NATO fellowship and was able to work in our lab for one year integrating ostracod fossils and molecular phylogeny. Oive's link from the University of Tartu in Estonia.

	Bjorn Ostman - (2003-2005) MA 2005
	Bjorn examined the evolution of gene expression following duplication events. He wrote a nice thesis that has resulted in a significant publication, which is currently in review.

	Brian Swartz - Undergraduate 2004 (BS 2004)
	Brian examined salmonid phylogeny in our lab and then went on to do a masters at Cambridge. He is now in the PhD program at Berkeley studying evolution and paleontology of early vertebrates.

	Kerry Geiler , Lab Manager/Technician 2005-2006.
	One of Kerry's independent projects was to investigate opsin genes in Daphnia, starting with the genome sequence. She found the first crustacean UV opsin (probably) and many other expressed opsins in the Daphnia genome. She has now moved on to pursue her PhD at Harvard University.

	Asa Wilson - MS Student
	Asa did an honor's thesis in our lab and couldn't get enough. He stayed to get a Master's degree. His bachelor's thesis concerned scallop phylogeny, asymmetry and eye regeneration. For his MS thesis he examined the evolutionary origins of rods and cones in vertebrates.

Kim Lum - Undergrad Student, Biology

Kim is interested in integrative biology. In our lab, she tested the hypothesis that a developmental constraint underlies the evolution of jaw vs eye size in Characiform fishes. Work on cavefishes provides a developmental mechanism, and Kim is testing the hypothesis by cross-species comparison in a phylogenetic context. After being accepted to every PhD program in the country (well not really, it just seemed that way), Kim is pursuing Evo-Devo studies at the University of Oregon.