My main research focus is studying the causal process of genetic differentiation using population structure and history, and ecological data.  The importance of ecology in speciation events has, until recent years, been overlooked as a potential driving force in speciation events.  My thesis work, with Dr. Spicer, included a phylogenetic study of Neotamias (western chipmunks), a group resulting from a very recent adaptive radiation.  This speciose group is ecologically diverse and shows strong phylogeographic partitioning. The multiple instances of contiguous allopatry in this group could act as natural replicates in studying resource and genetic partitioning.