Evolutionary Conservation Biology
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Welcome to the Cassin Sackett lab!
Research in our lab centers around evolutionary processes in wildlife, from adaptation to changing conditions to diversification across space and time. Much of our work uses wildlife diseases as models to study adaptation. We combine field and lab approaches with genomic and bioinformatic tools to understand evolution in complex disease systems. Current research in the lab occurs in three main systems: 1) avian malaria in Hawaiian honeycreepers, 2) sylvatic plague in prairie dogs, and 3) parasites and pathogens of capybaras. These systems are explored across spatial and phylogenetic scales ranging from microevolution within populations to spatially dynamic communities in metapopulations to multiple species across a phylogeny.
You can find our latest publications on GoogleScholar and ResearchGate, and follow us (via Loren) on BlueSky.
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Latest News
Fall 2025: Our paper on variation in gene expression across elevation and malaria infection status in Hawai'i 'amakihi is out! You can check it out in Ecology and Evolution.
Fall 2025: The Cassin Sackett lab has welcomed two new graduate students to the team! Happy to have Zariah Ross and Luke Estes in the lab.
June 2025: We are excited to share our first results comparing the genomes of prairie dogs that survived a natural plague epizootic to those that died - the paper is available in PNAS Nexus here!
June 2025: A collaborator-led publication on emergency conservation interventions in Hawaiian birds came out in Current Biology! Great work by Chris Kyriazis!
Fall 2024: We are excited to welcome Carolina Thomas Rojas to the lab! Carolina hails from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia and will be studying microbiomes, genomes, and transcriptomes in chiguiros (capybara). We are so happy to have you here--bienvenida!
December 2023: Anna Jackson has completed her Master's degree and is moving on to greener pastures (Brown U). Anna won an award for outstanding Master's student at UL. Congratulations, Anna!
May 2023: We are thrilled that our project "Predicting the evolution of disease resistance in heterogeneous landscapes" was funded by NSF! This project builds on a lot of ongoing work and also has some exciting new dimensions and collaborations. You can find out more here .
Old news can be viewed in the News Archive.
Fall 2025: The Cassin Sackett lab has welcomed two new graduate students to the team! Happy to have Zariah Ross and Luke Estes in the lab.
June 2025: We are excited to share our first results comparing the genomes of prairie dogs that survived a natural plague epizootic to those that died - the paper is available in PNAS Nexus here!
June 2025: A collaborator-led publication on emergency conservation interventions in Hawaiian birds came out in Current Biology! Great work by Chris Kyriazis!
Fall 2024: We are excited to welcome Carolina Thomas Rojas to the lab! Carolina hails from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia and will be studying microbiomes, genomes, and transcriptomes in chiguiros (capybara). We are so happy to have you here--bienvenida!
December 2023: Anna Jackson has completed her Master's degree and is moving on to greener pastures (Brown U). Anna won an award for outstanding Master's student at UL. Congratulations, Anna!
May 2023: We are thrilled that our project "Predicting the evolution of disease resistance in heterogeneous landscapes" was funded by NSF! This project builds on a lot of ongoing work and also has some exciting new dimensions and collaborations. You can find out more here .
Old news can be viewed in the News Archive.
For fun: Loren's most recently uploaded observations to iNaturalist
