We are fortunate that Daniel Hooper has been awarded one of this year’s Rose Postdoctoral Fellowships from the Lab of Ornithology! Daniel is currently finishing up his PhD at the University of Chicago, where he is working with his advisor Trevor Price on the evolution of chromosomal inversions and their importance for avian divergence and differentiation. When Daniel comes to the Lab later in 2017, he will continue on this general research theme, examining the interplay between structural and functional evolution throughout the speciation process. He plans to study divergence in sexually dimorphic gene expression, the large-Z effect, and chromosome inversion evolution using genomic and transcriptomic data from members of the Australian grassfinches (order Estrildidae) with emphasis on the hybrid zone between subspecies of the Long-tailed Finch (Poephila acuticauda).
