Lab Members and Affiliates

Lab Members

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Charles Davis | Principal Investigator

Learn more about my research here.

E.  cdavis@oeb.harvard.edu 

Shijia Peng | Postdoctoral Researcher

Peter Flynn | Postdoctoral Researcher

Hi! I am a postdoctoral fellow in OEB working with the Davis Lab. I am an evolutionary biologist broadly interested in plant and insect phylogenetics, innovative approaches to museum genomics, and microbial evolution.  My postdoctoral research at the Harvard University Herbaria is looking to better understand the evolutionary history of medicinal plants using herbarium specimens with novel genomic methodologies. My PhD research at The University of Chicago and the Field Museum focused on beginning to disentangle the evolutionary history of ant bacterial and viral communities using various phylogenomic approaches.

E.  pflynn@fas.harvard.edu

Yanqun Xu | Postdoctoral Researcher

Hello, I am a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the Davis Lab in the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology department at Harvard University. I hold a joint PhD degree in Postharvest Physiology from Zhejiang University and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and in 2019, I secured a position as an assistant researcher at Zhejiang University. My research interests primarily focus on the interaction between plants and the environment, particularly the role of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the interaction between fungi and plants. Currently, I am studying the evolution of key terpene VOC synthase genes and mitochondrial genes in strawberries using genome-skimming and bioinformatics analysis. The objectives of my study are to understand how domain changes in functional proteins contribute to the evolution of strawberries from diploid to octoploid and how these proteins impact fruit physiology, such as flavor formation and disease resistance.

E.  yanqunxu@fas.harvard.edu

Ahmet Bakirbas | Postdoctoral Researcher

I am a postdoctoral fellow in Davis Lab at Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (OEB). I am a molecular biologist and bioinformatician broadly interested in utilizing multi-omics approaches in different plant species. During my PhD studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I worked on shoot-to-root signaling of iron homeostasis in model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana, during which I performed many genomics and transcriptomics analyses and grew my bioinformatics skills. My postdoctoral project in Davis Lab involves generating a database of genomes from over 1500 medicinal plant species from Harvard University Herbaria and processing these low-coverage genomes using machine learning algorithms to improve and automate species identification.

E.  abakirbas@fas.harvard.edu

Chris Grassa | Graduate Student

E.  c.j.grassa@gmail.com

Justin Williams | Graduate Student

E.  justin_williams@g.harvard.edu

Ryan Schmidt | Graduate Student

Hi! I am a PhD student in the Davis lab working in the Harvard University Herbaria. I am a botanist broadly interested in understanding how humans have shaped biodiversity through space and time, with a focus on the ecologies and evolutionary histories of human-associated “weedy” plants and their relatives. In my research, I use a combination of ecological, phylogenetic, historical, and museum-based methods to better understand the mechanisms that allow some plants to colonize new areas. I am especially interested in how historical transportation infrastructure (e.g., shipping, ballast deposition, and railroads) has shaped global biodiversity through historical species introductions, and the ecology, evolution, and biogeography of the genus Verbascum (mulleins; Scrophulariaceae).

E.  ryanschmidt@g.harvard.edu 

Jackson Kehoe | Research Assistant

I am a recent graduate of Harvard College who is interested in plant evolution and diversity, herbarium research, and the ways in which plants and humans interact -- in particular how we as humans imagine, relate to and make use of plants, and how we have over our history as a species. I'm excited about developments in genomics that are making it possible to more deeply explore these questions. 

E.  jkehoe@fas.harvard.edu

Affiliates

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Yujing Yan | HUH Research Fellow

Dr. Yujing Yan is a HUH Postdoc Research Fellow at the Harvard University Herbaria under the supervision of Prof. Charles Davis. Fascinated by the rich diversity of life, she uses a variety of methods from ecology, biogeography, and evolutionary biology to study how diversity patterns have evolved at both taxonomic and geographic levels. Specifically, she focuses on the biogeography and evolution of the tea family (Theaceae), the population history behind the extinction of Franklinia alatahama, and the distribution and conservation of a parasitic fungus genus, Ophiocordyceps. Please check her website for more information about her research and projects (https://yanyujing.info/).

E.  yujingyan@fas.harvard.edu

Dawson White | HUH Research Fellow (January 2023)

I am fascinated by the study of how plant lineages have moved around and evolved into their present diversity and distributions, and what these histories can teach us about the nature of species. My research uses genomic, chemical, and spectral reflectance data to reconstruct and describe these histories in the Coca family (cocaine, not chocolate) and the genus Dryas, with a major focus on the evolution of coca and ayu crops (Erythroxylum coca and E. novogranatense). 

E.  dawson.white@gmail.com

Jenifer de Carvalho Lopes | HUH Research Fellow

Jenifer de Carvalho Lopes is an evolutionary biologist interested in plant systematics, taxonomy and biogeography of Neotropical lineages of Velloziaceae and Annonaceae. Jenifer was associated to Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, where she finished her undergraduate degree in Biological Science (2010) and master's (2012) and PhD (2016) in Botany and postdoc (2023) studying the plant family Annonaceae (the soursop and Ylang Ylang family).

At the HUHU Jenifer is mentored by Dr. Charles Davis and is developing a research project with the systematics of Vellozia (Velloziaceae). Velloziaceae (Pandanales) has its main distribution in Brazil, from the total number of 267 species, classified in five genera,  225 occur in Brazil, being 222 endemic species. The diversity of Velloziaceae is centered in the campo rupestre, a type of vegetation associated with rock outcrops in ancient mountaintops, being the most abundant and species-rich vascular plant in this ecosystem. The campo rupestre is inserted in the Cerrado biome, in central Brazil, an environment listed as a hotspot of biodiversity. Vellozia is the largest genus of the family, with 128 species, most of them endemic to Brazil, and do not have an updated taxonomic treatment. Jenifer's project aims to produce a new infrageneric classification for Vellozia and an updated synopsis, with an identification key to species.

E.  jdecarvalholopesdantas@fas.harvard.edu