I am a bioinformatician in Dr. Gideon Bradburd’s lab in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Michigan. Broadly, I am interested in understanding morphological and genetic variation in natural populations.
Prior to my current position, I was a postdoc with Drs. Kim Scribner and John Robinson in the Fisheries and Wildlife Department at Michigan State University. There I examined gene flow and reproductive ecology of the invasive Red Swamp Crayfish in Michigan, USA. Prior to that I was a postdoc in Dr. Rachael Bay’s lab at the University of California, Davis in the Evolution and Ecology Department. With Dr. Bay I looked at avian responses to human mediated environments (urbanization and climate change) using genetic and morphological data.
I did my PhD in Dr. Suzanne Edmands’s lab at the University of Southern California. My dissertation examined the effects of changing demographics, specifically short, severe bottlenecks and expansions, on the genomic diversity of the Channel Island fox. I also looked into the scat microbiome as a noninvasive conservation tool for measuring the health of endangered populations by relating the community ecology of gastrointestinal bacteria to an individual’s genetic diversity.
I received my B.S. in biochemistry from Miami University in 2011 and an M.Sc. in zoology in 2013. Additional research I’ve done includes looking at the role geography played in morphology of the Island Night Lizard and determining the population genetics of prairie voles and desert spring amphipods.
Nicole E. Adams 