I am an evolutionary biologist and a Professor at U. C. Davis. My lab is in the UC Davis Genome Center and I hold appointments in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology in the School of Medicine and the Department of Evolution and Ecology in the College of Biological Sciences. In addition I hold an Adjunct appointment at the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, CA. My research focuses on the origin of novelty (how new processes and functions originate). To study this I focus on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using phylogenomic analysis (see my lab site here which has more information on lab activities). I am an author on more than 200 scientific publications as well as an Evolution textbook and a variety of other things. In addition to my research I have been heavily involved in many "open science" activities. Among my open science activities: * I have been involved in PLOS Biology from its beginning - I was one of the founding Academic Editors, subsequently served as Academic Editor in Chief and am now the Chair of their Advisory Board. * Editorial Board of BioRXiv * Winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award for Open Science in 2012 * Active and award winning science blogger and microblogger

I study how brains initiate spontaneous actions and how experience with the consequences of these actions shapes future behavior.

I am interested on understanding how host-microbe interactions affect microbe evolution, identifying what are the important selective pressures within-hosts and the consequences of this microbial evolution for host health.