About Me

I am currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Zoology and Entomology at Rhodes University in South Africa, and am part of the Centre for Biological Control research group.

I enjoy working on projects that involve answering phylogenetic and evolutionary questions, and I particularly love writing my own code and creating user-friendly applications.

📌 Please check out the tutorials I have created that cover how to run a variety of phylogenetic analyses, from sequence alignments to tree-building.

My blog covers all kinds of odds and ends that I find interesting; mostly snippets of code that can help with phylogenetic data preparation.

Please get in touch with me if you would like to collaborate on a project!

Current work

• RADseq population genetic work, focusing on the native South African crystalline ice plant (Cryophytum crystallinum) that is invasive in the USA.

• A genetic investigation of the native stem-boring Tetramesa wasps in South Africa: identifying potential biological control agents of invasive grasses.

• Species distribution modelling for the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) - a risk assessment for South Africa. A collaboration with Evans Mauda and Wayne Kirkman at Citrus Research International (CRI)