People

Sean A. S. Anderson. Principal Investigator.
sean.anderson(at)gatech.edu
Welcome to the website. I'm Sean. I'm an evolutionary biologist and ecologist with wide-ranging interests in these fields. Perhaps above all, I'm fascinated by the fantastic diversity of life, how it evolves, and how it is maintained. My favourite approach to science is to consider big questions and develop novel quantitative approaches to address them. All the better if those questions have been topics of some debate. Much of my day-to-day work is done on computers, but I've also conducted extensive field work on four continents and collect data in forests, mountains, and near the ocean as much as possible. When I'm not in those beautiful places, I enjoy great restaurants, literature, movies, my dogs, and my friends.
CV
Sean's Google Scholar

Postdocs

Mukta Joshi Postdoc (incoming Fall 2025)
mukta.joshi(at)oulu.fi
I am an evolutionary biologist by training who enjoys working on exciting questions, and learning about new tools and technologies while doing so. After completing my undergraduate studies at Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune in India, I joined Prof. Marko Mutanen's research group at University of Oulu (Finland) for my PhD. My doctoral research focused on resolving taxonomic challenges in different groups of butterflies and moths using genomic approaches (mainly target enrichment). For my postdoctoral research, I am now shifting my focus to broader questions in evolutionary genomics, including speciation, adaptation, and molecular evolution. I am specifically interested in understanding molecular evolutionary processes that drive divergence in closely related speciating taxa and how it progresses across the continuum of differentiation (i.e., the "speciation continuum").
In my free time, I like to read novels, practice chess, try my hands at different forms of art and craft, and seize every opportunity to travel and hike.
Mukta's Google Scholar

Graduate Students

(Martin) Xinyu Zhang
xzhang3237(at)gatech.edu
My name is Martin, and I graduated from the UC Davis with a B.S. in Genetics and Genomics. My research interests focus on using genomic approaches to investigate speciation, evolutionary processes, and ecological adaptation. I am particularly interested in how genetic variation interacts with environmental factors to shape biodiversity and evolutionary trajectories. Currently, my project explores the dynamical nature of "islands" of genomic divergence and how they change upon secondary contact as a model for understanding the dynamics of speciation.

Marina Holdopolous
mhaldopoulos3(at)gatech.edu
The thread that connects my research experiences is my interest in the origin and maintenance of diverse life on Earth. My training is in microbiology, as bacteria are an excellent model to demonstrate eco-evo dynamics on a time scale in which we can study evolution in action.  I first worked as a technician in the Weiss Lab at Emory University, studying bacterial pathogenesis and the evolution of population-level heterogeneity in antibiotic resistance. I then studied in the Whiteley Lab at Georgia Tech, investigating how bacterial interactions impact spatial structure in infection environments. Now as a member of the Anderson Lab, I am broadly interested in the processes that govern the stability of organisms’ coexistence. These are the processes that keep our microbiomes healthy or dysbiotic, our coral reefs vibrant or degraded, and determine the outcome of ongoing speciation. I am currently studying how ecological differentiation allows for coexistence of closely related species despite gene flow. In other words, what are the ecological and genomic requirements for sister species to coexist?

Undergraduate Researchers

Robert Ernst Undergraduate Researcher
rernst6(at)gatech.edu
Robert Ernst is an evolutionary ecologist broadly interested how mountain species are adapting to various climatic and behavioral pressures. He is currently working with the Anderson lab to develop and synthesize a large database of hybrid fitness across plants and animals (i.e. The Hybrid Fitness Consortium). Robert is also working with Dr. Benjamin Freeman's Mountain bird lab on an analysis of large citizen science databases to demonstrate how cowbird nest parasitism strategies change over their range and with Dr. Mark Hay's group on coral reef chemical ecology.

Giuli Capparelli Sanabria Undergraduate Researcher
gsanabria6(at)gatech.edu
I am a third year Biology major on the Pre-Veterinary pathway, also working towards a minor in Leadership Studies. My love for animals introduced me to the field of Ecology, and I am interested in understanding how species adapt to their environments, and the different adaptations throughout the animal kingdom. One important application of this idea is Hybrid Fitness: how well hybrid offspring survive and reproduce compared to their parents, a topic on which I've worked in this lab as part of the Hybrid Fitness Consortium. Outside of the lab, I am passionate about making education more accessible, and I always love a good book!

Niyathi Yamunan Undergraduate Researcher
nyamunan3(at)gatech.edu
I am a first year Biochemistry major planning to complete the 5-year Bs/Ms program offered at Tech. Growing up, collecting the abundant fossils in my native Texas sparked my interest in the evolutionary history of our planet. I am currently working with the Anderson lab to develop a relational database containing data about the fitness of several species of plants and animals and their hybrid offspring. In my free time, I enjoy baking, embroidery, and building LEGO sets.