Our laboratory studies genome biology and evolutionary genomics using integrative approaches and vertebrates and invertebrate parasites as model systems. Our research addresses fundamental questions in genome biology and evolution including how novel gene regulatory networks evolve and function, how vertebrates control regenerative growth, how multiple synergistic processes shape genome structure and function, and how synergistic evolutionary processes result in speciation. These basic questions typically leverage snakes as model systems because they possess many extreme and unique phenotypic and genomic characteristics that make them particularly powerful models for such comparative studies. Our work on schistosome parasites addresses more applied questions about how control efforts may drive distinct patterns of transmission and natural selection. We also work collaboratively on a diversity of other topics, including COVID evolution, optimization of antibiotic compounds, the roles of stress response pathways and epigenomics of trans-generational plasticity. Thus, our work addresses a diversity of questions, some of which have strong relevance to human biology and human health, while other questions target broader biological understanding of how genomes evolve, how genomes function, and how extreme traits evolve. Research in our lab involves both the generation and integrated computational analysis of diverse ‘omic’-scale datasets (including large population genomic datasets, functional genomics datasets, and single-cell omic datasets), and often lead us to develop new theory and new computational approaches that have broad relevance beyond our own research. Given the breadth of techniques and questions in the lab, a great diversity of personal interests of graduate or undergraduate research can be accommodated.