Research Focus
I am broadly interested in how new species form. To understand this process I am working on the Hawaiian flightless swordtail crickets of the genus Laupala which have the fastest known speciation rates in invertebrates. I am currently interested in working at a hybrid zone of these crickets to understand how reproductive isolating barriers have evolved and are being maintained. I want to approach my questions through the lens of animal behavior and population genomics. I am trying to look at how mating traits like song is important in reproductive isolation, and how the genome of these crickets have been shaped by selection on divergent mating traits and past demography.