Dr. Paul Schmidt

Biography

Paul Schmidt obtained his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1999, focusing on evolutionary ecology and ecological evolutionary genetics. His research group is broadly interested in ecological evolutionary dynamics and how populations experience environmental heterogeneity across spatial and temporal scales. He seeks to understand how natural selection operates in heterogeneous environments, particularly examining the context dependency and constraints of this process, which ultimately leads to adaptive responses. His work combines extensive sampling of natural populations with -omics level characterizations, as well as classical molecular genetics conducted both in the laboratory and the field. Schmidt's research centers around testing the functional significance of identified molecular polymorphisms, establishing concrete links between allelic variation and physiologically mediated performance, and differential fitness of genotypes in various environments. For current information about the laboratory's research, please see the lab webpage.

Research Interests

Courses