Welcome
to Kesseli Lab at University of Massachusetts, Boston
!!
The research foci in the lab are varied but most address the genetic changes and evolutionary processes that alter populations. Projects fall into two broad and not mutually exclusive clusters. The first is genome evolution with specific projects characterizing the origin and evolution of disease resistance in plants and another examining the genetic bases and evolutionary drivers of breeding system changes in plants species. Here we apply tools and approaches drawn from fields of molecular biology and biotechnology. The second cluster encompasses projects in environmental and conservation biology. Here we often apply molecular tools, but utilize more population genetic and ecological approaches to examine the cause and consequences of rarity in populations of endangered endemic species as well as the genetic changes that may promote invasiveness in non-native species.
Because of the diversity of research foci and interdisciplinary
approaches used in the lab, the Ph. D. and M.S. students
in the lab are drawn from both the Environmental Biology
and the Molecular Cellular and Organismal Biology programs
at the University. Graduate students are funded by research
grants (present or past funding coming from National Science
Foundation, U. S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental
Protection Agency) and from teaching assistantships from
the UMB. A group of three or four undergraduates are generally
also involved in research projects in the lab each year.
These students are funded from a variety of sources including
research grants and training grants such as the NSF sponsored
Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program and
NIH sponsored Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity
(IMSD) programs.
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