Michael Landis, PhD
Statistical phylogenetics, Bayesian inference, historical biogeography, phenotypic evolution
Assistant Professor
Biology
Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology Program
Computational and Systems Biology Program
Molecular Genetics and Genomics Program
Keywords:
Statistical phylogenetics, Bayesian inference, historical biogeography, phenotypic evolution
Research:
Michael Landis is interested in learning how evolutionary processes behave and how Earth`s biodiversity has changed over time. His lab at Washington University develops statistical models and scientific software to search for evolutionary patterns in biological and simulated datasets. In particular, he is interested in inferring phylogenetic relationships among species, estimating historical patterns of biogeography, and learning how phenotypes evolve over millions of years. His lab focuses research towards macroevolutionary questions in phylogenomics, biogeography, trait evolution, and statistical inference. To this end, the lab develops probabilistic models of evolution, writes open source and community-minded software to analyze those models, and tests evolutionary hypotheses by fitting those models to biological and simulated datasets.