Lacey Knowles

L. Lacey Knowles is the Robert B. Payne Collegiate Professor and Curator at the Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, with a primary affiliation in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Her research spans speciation, sexual selection, phylogeography, and evolutionary radiations, integrating genomic data, ecological modeling, and empirical studies across diverse taxa.

Dr. Knowles earned her Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolution from SUNY Stony Brook (1999) and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Arizona (1999-2002). Her lab explores climate change impacts on genomic variation, phylogenomic challenges in diversification history, and methodological innovations for species boundary inference.

Recent work highlights mosaic hybrid zones in western North American plants (PNAS, 2025) and river-biodiversity coevolution in Amazonia (Nature Reviews Biodiversity, 2025). She was elected an AAAS Fellow in 2024 and mentors a dynamic research group including graduate students, postdocs, and undergraduates.

Scientific Awards:

• AAAS Fellow (2024)

Current Research: Her lab investigates:

• Mosaic hybrid zones and ecosystem resiliency
• Climate change effects on species diversity
• Phylogenomic methods for divergent taxa
• Sexual selection in diversification

Students & Collaborators:

• Diego Alvarado Serrano
• Qixin He
• Tristan McKnight
• Carlos Munoz
• Andrea Thomaz
• Lucy Tran
• Jen-Pan Huang
• Rob Massatti
• Rachel Wadleigh (Ph.D. student)
• Arnaud Becheler (Postdoc)