Jeremy Beaulieu

Principal Investigator
My research is mainly focused on developing new approaches to large tree construction and new phylogenetic comparative methods to gain insights into the evolution of the large flowering plant clades (most notably, campanulid angiosperms). By combining biogeographic history with morphological character information my hope is to better understand patterns of lineage diversification and its consequences on the distribution of biodiversity. My Google Scholar page is here. My CV is here.
Email: jmbeauli@uark.edu

Thais Vasconcelos

Postdoctoral researcher​
Thais is a botanist with a great passion for evolutionary biology and biogeography and interested in questions that integrate these topics. For instance, what are the spatial gradients of diversity in flowering plants and what causes them? Why some traits are more common in some areas and how these trait-area combinations drive distribution and diversification of flowering plants through time? She is currently working on development of biologically realistic methods in macroevolution and analyses of large datasets of traits and distribution to address these questions.​
Email: tvasc@uark.edu

James Boyko

Graduate student, PhD
He is interested in applying information theory to common phylogenetic comparative methods to quantify the limits of our knowledge.  Many debates in evolutionary biology are centered around what an ancestral species looked like or how it lived. These debates are difficult to resolve because as lineages evolve through time, they accumulate changes that distinguish them from their ancestor. Information loss in an evolutionary Markov model can be quantified by asking how much initial uncertainty has been reduced after the addition of information.
Email: jboyko@uark.edu

Katy Dupree

Graduate student, PhD
Currently, Katy is interested in studying trait evolution in flowering plants. More specifically, she is interested in identifying traits affecting the differential success of invasive plant species relative to their native counterparts. In identifying characteristic traits of successful invasive plants across the genus and family scale, we can better understand what makes a successful invader, inform management practices, and better identify future invasive species before they become a problem. Link to Katy's website is here.​
Email: kedupree@uark.edu

Eric Hagen

Graduate student, PhD​
​Eric’s dissertation focuses on whole genome duplications in plants, especially angiosperms. He researches how polyploidy affects diversification, niche construction and exploitation, trait evolution, and other macroevolutionary processes. Additionally, Eric is interested in using scientific approaches to address philosophical problems in biology, including higher-level selection, methods of tree inference, and character individuation. You can find his Twitter here and his website here.
Email: erhagen@uark.edu

Andrew Palmer

Undergraduate researcher
Andrew is an undergraduate majoring in Biology and Sociology. His current work focuses on geographic range modeling and population-level phylogenetics of an invasive honeysuckle, Lonicera maackii, which is taking over the forests around Fayetteville.

Phoebe Bruffett

Undergraduate researcher
Phoebe recently joined the lab in Fall 2019. She is currently interested in learning techniques for extracting and sequencing DNA, and inferring phylogenies from these data. She is currently assisting in the Lonicera maackii project.

Daniel Caetano

Lab Alumnus
Daniel was a postdoctoral researcher in the lab from 2017-2020 and will be starting as an Assistant Professor at Towson University in Spring 2021. Daniel is an evolutionary biologist interested in phylogenetic comparative methods of trait evolution. The main driver of his research is to evaluate and develop novel ways to investigate the evolution of complex phenotypes applied across the tree of life in a variety of biological systems. His recent work involves comparative methods for multivariate data, multilayered phenotypes and fitting predictor functions to macroevolutionary patterns.​ Link to Daniel's website is here.

Peter Hasik

Lab Alumnus
Peter was in the lab from 2018-2020, and recently completed his Master's degree. His work focused on examining macroevolutionary signals in extinction risk.​