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 two main systems: 1) avian malaria in Hawaiian honeycreepers and 2) sylvatic plague in prairie dogs. 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 follow the lab on Twitter, and check out our latest publications on GoogleScholar and ResearchGate.
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Latest News
January 2021: We are excited to welcome new student Anna Jackson, who will be working on prairie dog evolution. Glad to have you here, Anna!
August 2020: Master's student Sydni Joubran successfully defended her thesis AND secured a position as a research assistant at the New Iberia Research Center studying primates. Congratulations, Sydni!
Spring 2020: Our latest paper, reporting on the assembly of a high-quality Gunnison's prairie dog genome, is out in Genome Biology and Evolution. This paper was led by the amazing Mirian Tsuchiya and you can read it here!
January 2020: Loren's invited perspective "Promising Protocols for Parasites" was published in Molecular Ecology Resources. Read it here.
January 2020: Loren is spending 6 months as a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She is working to uncover the relative importance of microbiota and host genome on infection with several pathogens, using the capybara--the world's largest rodent--as a model. See more here.
Fall 2019: The Cassin Sackett lab is recruiting a PhD student to work on evolutionary genomics of prairie dogs and/or associated species. More info here.
August 2019: We are excited to welcome incoming PhD student Gabrielle Atkinson, who received a doctoral fellowship to work on avian evolution in Hawaiian honeycreepers. Glad to have you here, Gabby!
July 2019: Our book chapter on Avian Genomics in Conservation is officially published and available! You can find it at https://rd.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-16477-5.
May 2019: Sydni Joubran received a grant from the Society for Systematic Biology and the Linnaean Society to explore the genomics and mechanisms of the early stages of divergence in mammals. Congratulations, Sydni!
November 2018: New paper in Molecular Ecology on genomics of the evolution of tolerance to avian malaria in Hawai'i 'amakihi!
Old news can be viewed in the News Archive.
August 2020: Master's student Sydni Joubran successfully defended her thesis AND secured a position as a research assistant at the New Iberia Research Center studying primates. Congratulations, Sydni!
Spring 2020: Our latest paper, reporting on the assembly of a high-quality Gunnison's prairie dog genome, is out in Genome Biology and Evolution. This paper was led by the amazing Mirian Tsuchiya and you can read it here!
January 2020: Loren's invited perspective "Promising Protocols for Parasites" was published in Molecular Ecology Resources. Read it here.
January 2020: Loren is spending 6 months as a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She is working to uncover the relative importance of microbiota and host genome on infection with several pathogens, using the capybara--the world's largest rodent--as a model. See more here.
Fall 2019: The Cassin Sackett lab is recruiting a PhD student to work on evolutionary genomics of prairie dogs and/or associated species. More info here.
August 2019: We are excited to welcome incoming PhD student Gabrielle Atkinson, who received a doctoral fellowship to work on avian evolution in Hawaiian honeycreepers. Glad to have you here, Gabby!
July 2019: Our book chapter on Avian Genomics in Conservation is officially published and available! You can find it at https://rd.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-16477-5.
May 2019: Sydni Joubran received a grant from the Society for Systematic Biology and the Linnaean Society to explore the genomics and mechanisms of the early stages of divergence in mammals. Congratulations, Sydni!
November 2018: New paper in Molecular Ecology on genomics of the evolution of tolerance to avian malaria in Hawai'i 'amakihi!
Old news can be viewed in the News Archive.