معرفی
Amanda K. Gibson is an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Virginia's Department of Biology within the College of Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on the evolutionary and ecological dynamics of host-parasite interactions, particularly how parasites drive evolutionary changes in hosts and vice versa. She leads the Gibson Lab, located at 137 Physical Life Sciences Building, Charlottesville, Virginia.
Education: B.A. in Biology from Amherst College (2008); Ph.D. in Biology from Indiana University (2016); NIH FIRST Postdoctoral Fellowship at Emory University (2016–2018). Her work integrates field observations, experimental manipulations, and theoretical models to study topics like parasite-driven selection on host traits, genetic diversity's role in disease spread, and coevolutionary processes in natural and agricultural systems.
Research Interests:
- Evolutionary strategies hosts employ against parasites
- Genetic and environmental drivers of disease dynamics
- Host dispersal and life history adaptations
- Coevolution in wild and agricultural settings
- Biological control strategies using parasite diversity
Lab Highlights: Recent achievements include Louis Janisch receiving the Lisa A. Smith Endowed Graduate Fellowship (2024), and ongoing projects on parasite adaptation to host genotypes and host heterogeneity effects on pathogen virulence. The lab actively recruits undergraduates and emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches combining genomic data with ecological experiments.
Grants & Funding: Includes a National Science Foundation CAREER Award supporting experimental evaluations of dispersal as a parasite avoidance strategy.
