Dr. Richards-Zawacki received her PhD with L. Lacey Knowles in 2007 from the University of Michigan, performed her post-doctoral research at the Smithsonian Institute and UC Berkeley,, held a position as Assistant Professor at Tulane University, and joined the department in 2015.
My research lies at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology, in that I approach questions about how changes in climate and habitat shape organisms and communities in a way that considers their evolutionary implications. My work integrates studies of molecular, morphological, ecological, and behavioral variation, and I focus mainly on amphibians because their diversity provides an exciting backdrop for exploring the interplay between ecology and evolution across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. The questions I ask address:
- How climate and host/pathogen evolution shape the dynamics of wildlife diseases
- The effects of changes in climate on species distributions and diversity
- How reproductive isolation evolves during speciation
- The natural history and conservation of endangered amphibians.