Justin Conover

Justin Conover is an NSF Plant Genome Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Arizona, working under Dr. Michael Barker and Dr. Ryan Gutenkunst. His research examines the evolutionary impacts of whole genome duplication events (polyploidy) on plant genome architecture and biodiversity across multiple timescales.

Dr. Conover investigates how polyploidy alters patterns of natural selection, genetic load accumulation, and genome reorganization in plants. His current NSF-funded project uses Brassica crops to model how ploidy level affects the distribution of fitness effects (DFE) over evolutionary time.

He employs computational approaches in comparative genomics and population genetics to analyze polyploid systems including cotton, peanut, wheat, quinoa, and Brassica species.