The Department of Animal Biology at the University of Illinois
is accepting applications for graduate students for admission in
Fall 2018. We accept applications for both the Master?s (M.S.) and
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degrees. We are an interactive group with
expertise in ecology, evolution, behavior, bioinformatics, conservation,
genetics & genomics, physiology, neuroscience, endocrinology, and
morphology. Students take many approaches to their studies including field
work on whole organisms, genomics/bioinformatics, lab experimentation,
and theory. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign also
offers state-of-the-art research facilities in imaging, genomics, and
engineering. Urbana-Champaign is a pleasant, affordable, university
town with good music and restaurants. It has its own airport and is
close to three major U.S. cities (Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis).
Students for the Ph.D. are typically funded for 5-years with a
combination of fellowships, research assistantships, and teaching
assistantships. The deadline for consideration for fellowship
support is December 15, 2017. We will consider to consider students
for admission until January 1, 2018. For further information, see
http://www.life.illinois.edu/animalbiology/graduate_program.htm
The following faculty are actively recruiting students:
Philip Anderson – Comparative evolutionary biomechanics in both
vertebrates and invertebrates. Current areas of specific interest
include: examining the evolution of biological cutting/puncture systems;
biomechanical and morphological diversification in deep-time; evolution
of multi-part biomechanical systems.
Alison Bell – Individual variation; animal personality and behavioral
syndromes; neurogenomics; transgenerational plasticity; evolution of
behavior. We primarily study threespined stickleback fish.
Carla Caceres – Population, community and evolutionary ecology;
life-history evolution; ecology of infectious disease; limnology.
Julian Catchen – Evolution of the genome; computational biology and
population genomics; identifying large structural variation in populations
of threespine stickleback; investigating the evolution of the notothenioid
(Antarctic fishes) genome by examining the adaptive radiation of five
notothenioid species. RADseq, assembly, and genetic mapping analytical
method development.
Chris Cheng – Evolutionary genomic, transcriptomic, physiological and
biochemical changes accompanying cold adaptation and cold specialization
in Antarctic and Arctic fishes. Genetic origins and molecular mechanisms
of evolution of antifreeze proteins and other novel cold-adaptive genes
and functions. Marine biodiversity in polar regions. Field research in
Antarctica and the Arctic.
Becky Fuller – Evolutionary biology of fishes; evolution of color
patterns/color vision; speciation as a function of adaptation to salinity
and genomic rearrangements; speciation in darters and killifish
Mark Hauber – Ecology and evolution in birds; brood parasitism;
comparative chemistry of egg shell pigmentation, acoustic and visual
recognition systems in birds, neuro-ethology and -genomics, seabird
conservation
Ken Paige – Plant-animal interaction with an emphasis on understanding
the phenomenon of overcompensation from ecological, physiological, genetic
and evolutionary perspectives; conservation biology; evolutionary ecology.
Charles Roseman – Evolutionary quantitative genetics, evo-devo, evolution
of the g-matrix with emphasis on how small changes in development alter
developmental trajectories and adult phenotypes; mammals