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Nashville, TN –– Vanderbilt University’s Evolutionary Studies Initiative is thrilled to announce that evolutionary biologist Jaap de Roode will be delivering the annual Biodiversity Day Lecture. de Roode is widely recognized for his groundbreaking research on the behavioral ecology of parasite-infected monarch butterflies, which has transformed our understanding of the disease… Read More

By Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies senior program manager In our modern, industrialized world, many of us are constantly seeking to lower our ‘bad’ cholesterol because this ‘bad cholesterol’ contributes to many of top causes of death worldwide, like heart disease and stroke. Understanding the genetic underpinnings of what drives cholesterol-related… Read More

By Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies senior program manager Antonis Rokas, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair in Biological Sciences and Director of Evolutionary Studies, was named a Mycological Society of America fellow in summer 2026. In his acceptance speech (video below), he outlines how he was not trained as a mycologist but… Read More

By: Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies senior program manager New work led by graduate student Audrey Arner of the Lea Lab looks at how best to communicate jargon-riddled scientific results with Indigenous communities, who often have limited access to formal education or previous exposure to academic research. Arner and her… Read More

By: Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies senior program manager The food we eat influences the wear patterns on our teeth. Dentists will tell you about the effects of acidic coffee or soda, hard candies, and popcorn kernels. Paleoecologists will tell you about the effects of grass versus branches. In a new… Read More

By Tatum Lyles Flick, Evolutionary Studies communications consultant Many fungi are naturally resistant to the drugs available to treat them, while others evolve resistance to drugs prescribed in clinical settings. Determining which medication will be most effective in treating a patient can be a time-consuming challenge. Vanderbilt University… Read More

By Fabiana Fragoso, PhD – ESI Scientific Communications Volunteer For more than a century, paleontologists have debated what the prehistoric mammals known as “hell pigs” were actually eating. Despite their nickname, these animals were actually more closely related to whales and hippos than to modern pigs. With unusually long… Read More

Lin Meng’s few short years at Vanderbilt have been productive in advancing understanding of the factors that influence the changing growing seasons of plants. Meng is an assistant professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Vanderbilt. She posits that the most widely assumed external factor influencing the growing… Read More

By Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies scientific coordinator While someone may not often think about the bacteria living in their gut, assistant professor of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology Wenhan Zhu and his team, Luisella Spiga, Ryan Fansler, Yifan Wu, and Abigail Rose certainly do. They’ve carved out a niche… Read More

By Andy Flick, Evolutionary Studies scientific coordinator Many factors influence growth and reproductive patterns in animals and people alike. New research, led by postdoctoral researcher Rachel Petersen of the Lea Lab at Vanderbilt and Assistant Professor Sam Patterson of Notre Dame University, shows that adversity experienced during development may… Read More