UA ALLELE Lecture Series Continues with Harvard Biologist Hopi Hoekstra

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Hopi Hoekstra of Harvard University will present her lecture, “From Darwin to DNA: How Organisms Adapt to their Environment,” Dec. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in the Biology Building auditorium on The University of Alabama campus.

Hoekstra is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of Biology in the department of organismic and evolutionary biology and the curator of mammals at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard.

Her presentation is the second in the 2010-2011 Alabama Lectures on Life’s Evolution, known as ALLELE. The lecture series, now in its fifth year, is supported by UA’s College of Arts and Sciences and the departments of anthropology, biological sciences, geological sciences, philosophy and psychology.

The lectures are designed for a non-technical audience and are free and open to the public.

“Our planet is teeming with a stunning display of biological diversity—from star-nose moles to the giant blue morpho butterflies to majestic redwoods and the toxic deathcap mushrooms. How did this diversity evolve? With the recent advent of new DNA sequencing technologies, we are now able to answer this question with unprecedented precision by studying the genetic code,” Hoekstra said.

“In my lecture, I will present one of the most complete studies of adaptive change in nature—the evolution of camouflaging coloration in mice inhabiting the coastal dunes of Alabama and Florida. Examples such as this are of growing importance for education as we live in a country in which less than half our citizens accept evolution.”

Hoekstra received a bachelor’s degree in integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and her doctorate in zoology from the University of Washington.

She then moved to the University of Arizona as a NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, where she studied the genetic basis of adaptive melanism in pocket mice. In 2003, she became an assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego. She joined Harvard’s faculty in 2007. She is broadly interested in the genetic basis of adaptation and speciation in vertebrates.

For more information on the lecture series, click here.

The ALLELE lecture series is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.