The Torres-Dowdall Lab will be at University of Notre Dame starting August 2022!
Welcome to the Torres-Dowdall lab! Our research group will investigate the causes and consequences of adaptive evolution. We study patterns of phenotypic variation along ecological gradients to understand how genetic and developmental variation interact with the environment to generate diversity. We use a combination of field, laboratory, and statistical approaches to identify the genetic, molecular, and environmental drivers of variation in traits such as morphology, visual sensitivity, and life history.
News!
  • We are here! We all arrived to Notre Dame and we had our first lab meeting ever! 
  • Proud to announce that César will be starting his first field season in May, supported by an UNDERC Graduate Fellowship!​
  • Congratulations to César who was granted a Merrilee Clark Redmond Endowment for Excellence - Graduate Research Initiation Grant!
  • We are excited to announce that Hanna Jewell is joining the lab in August 2022! Hanna comes from Boston College where she worked on determining the mechanisms and function of nuclear positioning of the cell on the blood-brain barrier. Welcome!
  • We are glad to announce that Xiyuan Guan has decided to join the lab starting on August 2022! Xiyuan has completed her bachelor in Biological Sciences at the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences where she worked in the evolution of mating behavior in birds. 
  • We are happy to announce that César Bertinetti Cerrato is joining the lab in August 2022! César completed his Master at Konstanz University, Germany, working on the links between environment, phenotype and fitness.  
Join the lab!
We are looking for motivated undergraduate students to join the lab. Our research provides opportunities to get involved in molecular and organismal level work in evolutionary ecology and possibilities to conduct lab and/or field research. We are also currently recruiting PhD students and Postdocs. If you are interested in our research, please contact Dr. Torres-Dowdall for further information.