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John Pool
John Pool

jpool@
wisc.edu
John started the lab in 2011.  Prior to that, he did postdocs with Chuck Langley (UC Davis) and Rasmus Nielsen (UC Berkeley & Copenhagen), and a PhD with Chip Aquadro (Cornell).  At UW-Madison, he is affiliated with the Laboratory of Genetics and the Genetics PhD program, the Department of Integrative Biology and its graduate program, Wisconsin Evolution, the Center for Genomic Science Innovation, and the Genome Sciences Training Program.
Research Staff:


Jaime Freeman
Jamie Freeman


jcfreeman2@
Jamie joined the lab after gaining experience as an undergraduate, masters student, and lab manager in Jeff Scott's lab at Cornell, where she studied insecticide resistance in house flies.  Here, she is bringing order to the lab, and researching the contribution of geographic diversity to adaptive potential.
Max Shpak
Max Shpak


mshpak@
Dr. Shpak joined the lab having already published extensively in evolutionary genetics.  He has been a cancer genomics researcher, a professor (UTEP), a postdoc with Sergey Gavrilets (U. Tenn.), a PhD student with Gunter Wagner (Yale), and an undergrad researcher with Alexei Kondrashov (then at Cornell). He is currently doing population genomics on museum fly genomes.
PhD Students:


Chris McAllester


cmcallester@
Chris is a Genetics PhD student interested in using theory and computation to answer evolutionary questions.  He is currently investigating a new model for inversion maintenance. As an undergraduate at Cornell, he did computational research on transcription factor binding sites with Robert Reed.

Siyuan Feng


sfeng77@
Siyuan is a Genetics PhD student interested in altitude adaptation and the integration of population and functional genomics.  He is currently analyzing population genomic data from the agricultural pest Drosophila suzukii.  His masters research was advised by Mingzhou Li at Sichuan Agricultural University.

Myron Child


mbchild@
Myron is a Genetics PhD student interested in reproductive isolation and its relationship with adaptive evolution.  He is investigating the mechanisms underlying hybrid breakdown in male mating success within D. melanogaster.  Before arriving at UW-Madison, Myron worked in the labs of Dean Castillo (then at Utah) and Hernan Garcia (Berkeley).
Undergraduates:


Boqin Yang
Boqin is a class of 2025 Microbiology major and Biocore student.

Emmah Daanen
Emmah is a class of 2025 Genetics & Genomics major and Global Health student.

Molly Hansen
Molly is a class of 2025 Genetics & Genomics major.

Joy Zhang
Joy is a class of 2025 Biology and Japanese major.

Olivia Yee
Olivia is a class of 2026 Biochemistry and Chinese major.

Collin Gehl
Colin is a class of 2026 Genetics & Genomics and Neurobiology major.

Lilli Kuhl
Lilli is a class of 2027 Genetics & Genomics major.

Lab alumni (and year finished):

Postdocs:
Ryuichi Sugino (2014) - computational biologist at Saitama Cancer Center
Justin Lack (2015) - computational biologist at the National Institutes of Health
Héloïse Bastide (2016)- faculty member at University of Paris-Sud & CNRS Gif-sur-Yvette
Amir Yassin (2016) - faculty member at CNRS Gif-sur-Yvette
Yuheng Huang (2019) - postdoc at UC-Irvine with Grace Lee
Maud Duranton (2021) - researcher at Ifremer, Montpellier, FR

PhD recipients:
Jeremy Lange (2021) - computational biologist at Genus Plc / ABS Global
Quentin Sprengelmeyer (2021) - TRIO/McNair Scholars Director at UW Platteville
Tiago da Silva Ribeiro (2024) - postdoc at the University of São Paulo with Rodrigo Cogni.
Matthew Lollar (2024)

Short term residents:
Davorka Gulisija (2013) - Faculty member at the University of New Mexico
Murillo Rodrigues (2018) - PhD student at the University of Oregon with Andrew Kern and Peter Ralph
Juliana Cordeiro (2019) - Faculty member at Universidade Federal de Pelotas (Brazil)
Samantha Vold (2020) - Life Sciences Communication graduate student at UW-Madison
Vitória Miranda (2024) - Graduate Student at the University of 
São Paulo

Undergraduates who finished their UW careers in the Pool Lab (and last known position):
Nicole Bangart (2014)
Evan Johanning (2014) - Lab Supervisor at Assurance Drug Testing
Dylan Braun (2015) - Scientist at Thermo Fisher
Ben Groth (2017) - PhD Student at UC Davis
Grant Hoppel (2017)
- Science Teacher
Matt Monette (2017) - Medical Student at Des Moines University
Audrey Simard (2017) - PhD Student at Penn State
Vedika Ramesh (2018)
- Genetic Counseling Student at University of Michigan
Tim Biewer-Heisler (2019) - PhD Student at Indiana University
Daria Ghorbanpoor (2020) - Dental Student at University of Michigan
Clarice Danen (2021) - Genetic Counseling Student at University of Utah
Olivia Gargulak (2021) - Dietician at Children's Wisconsin
Zach Johnson (2021) - Conservation Geneticist at West Virginia Zoo
Eleyna Escobedo (2023) - Medical Student at UW-Madison

Interested in joining us?

Postdocs - Even if there are no posted vacancies, I encourage any prospective postdocs to contact me regarding fellowships or openings that may arise. 

Ph.D. students - I encourage interested students to consider our Genetics Ph.D. program and the Integrative Biology Ph.D. program.  E-mail John if you'd like to learn more about these programs and specific opportunities in our lab.
  Applications are due by Dec. 1.  You can also check out my recorded lectures on applying for PhD programs.

Undergraduates - We post paid positions on the UW Student Jobs Center a couple of times per year.  Our students begin with paid research support work before potentially shifting to a research project for credit.  Students with a specific interest in our research are always welcome to contact me.

Research staff - Scieintists who might be an especially good fit for our lab are always welcome to contact John.


Our intellectual and geographic communities:

UW-Madison offers a superb scientific environment with a supportive, collaborative, and egalitarian culture.  There are a growing number of labs in population genetics, evolutionary genomics, and related fields present in many academic units:
Genetics PhD trainers in Evolutionary and Population Genetics
Genetics PhD trainers studying Drosophila
Members of Wisconsin Evolution

Madison offers an exceptional quality of life in a beautiful natural setting.  Downtown and campus are bordered by lakes, and the area includes a number of long distance bike trails.  Madison features diverse art, music, and cultural offerings.  A great farmers market and a focus on local food are complemented by a wide range of international restaurants.  Madison has been ranked as the best city in America for young adults, and has appeared on a slew of 'top cities' lists, including lists for:  families, dogs, biking, walking, nature, green-ness, safety, public schools and educated population, health and fitness, friendliness, farmers markets, arts, vegetarians, biotech, careers, quality of life, and so on...