معرفی
Linyi Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Biology at the Department of Biological Sciences within the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences at The George Washington University. Their research focuses on understanding fundamental evolutionary processes such as adaptation and speciation, particularly in herbivore insects specialized on host plants, including gall-forming insects and Lycaeides butterflies.
- Education
- B.S. in Ecology from East China Normal University, China (2012)
- M.S. in Ecology from East China Normal University, China (2015)
- Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Rice University, U.S.A. (2020)
The Zhang Lab, located at George Washington University, integrates interdisciplinary approaches like field surveys, behavioral observation, manipulative experiments, simulations, and evolutionary genomics to explore mechanistic connections among fitness, phenotype, and genotype. The lab actively recruits researchers, including a recent postdoctoral opportunity focused on gall size selection in goldenrod gall flies using GWAS and pool-seq data analysis.
The lab's research addresses two core questions: (1) How do populations adapt to local environments? (2) Why and how do new species form? Current projects involve ecological and evolutionary studies of herbivorous insects and their host plant interactions, emphasizing genomic techniques to uncover adaptive mechanisms.
