Degrees:
Ph. D. from the University of Alabama; Bachelor’s degree at the University of Georgia.
Biography:
The core theme of Joe's research is to determine how genetic, developmental, and functional relationships among fitness-related physiological, behavioral, and morphological traits change over various time spans (from generations to eons) in fishes. He is especially interested in determining how evolutionary processes come to form functional and genetic relationships among traits and how these relationships, in turn, affect rates of adaptation. By determining how traits are related to one another, and how those relationships affect the evolutionary potential of populations, we may begin to understand how populations and species might respond to future bouts of selection. In his spare time, Joe loves to cook, watch sports, and play softball.