Hernán López-Fernández

Hernán López-Fernández is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. He serves as the Curator of Fishes and Associate Chair for Collections in the EEB Museums. His affiliations include the Program in the Environment and the Michigan Institute for Data Science.

• Education: Ph.D. (2004) and Licentiate in Biology (1998) from Texas A&M University, with postdoctoral training at Texas A&M and University of Texas at Austin.

Research in the López-Fernández Lab focuses on the evolutionary processes driving mega-diverse biotic assemblages of Neotropical freshwater fishes, integrating systematics, comparative morphology, and ecology. Key areas include lineage diversification, ecology-morphology correlations, ecological assembly patterns, and human impacts on conservation. His recent work spans phylogenomic studies, functional morphology, and community science initiatives for data digitization. The lab's publications highlight adaptive radiation, historical ecology, and biodiversity documentation in regions like the Guiana Shield and Mazaruni River.

Graduate Students: Juan Gabriel Albornoz Garzón, Patricia Torres-Pineda, Benjamin Nicholas, Thomas Morgan.

Labs/Teams: López-Fernández Lab, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, Program in the Environment, Michigan Institute for Data Science.