While working with Dr. Rob Ness, we studied the effect of certain network measures on natural selection in two types of biological networks for the green algae, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii: co-expression and metabolic. We quantified selection by finding estimates for divergence and diversity measures and looked at two specific network measures: betweenness centrality and connectivity. We also looked at how the networks predict the distribution of fitness effects of new mutations, and how the rate of adaptive evolution varies across the networks.

I presented part of this work at the SMBE conference in Yokohama, Japan, where I won the best undergraduate poster award.

(Manuscript in preparation)