The lab

Thais Vasconcelos, PhD
(Principal Investigator)
The foundation of my research is to seek generalities, or “rules”, in flowering plant evolution, by focusing on the major biogeographical patterns observed in their phenotypes. (my first name is pronounced “tah-EES”) CV here tvasc@umich.edu | Thais’ GitHub | Thais’ bluesky | Thais’ Google scholar

Lena Heinrich
(PhD student)
Lena is broadly interested in plant-pollinator interactions, evolution, and behavioral ecology. Her work aims to explore the ecological and evolutionary drivers of functional and life history trait variation in bees and investigate how these traits mediate interactions between bees and plants across different environments. lenarh@umich.edu

Paulo Henrique Gaem, MSc
(PhD student)
Paulo is interested in systematics and evolution of highly diverse tropical plant lineages. His work aims to investigate the relationship between traits and the environment, phylogenetic relationships, biogeography, and trait divergence between sister taxa in neotropical myrtles (Myrtaceae, Myrteae), a hyper-diverse and morphologically homogeneous lineage. phgaem@umich.edu | Paulo’s Research Gate | Paulo’s Google scholar

Eric Hagen, PhD
(Postdoctoral Fellow)
Eric’s research interests revolve around questions at large scales in biology: big phylogenies, macroevolution over millions of years, global biogeography, etc. He approaches these problems mainly with analyses of trait evolution and diversification in plants, using statistical tools like phylogenetic comparative methods and meta-analysis. Much of his work has focused on plant evolution in response to shifts in ploidy and climate. erhagen@umich.edu | Eric’s website | Eric’s Google scholar

co-advised grad students | collaborations

Patrícia Sperotto, MSc
(PhD student, UFRGS-Brazil)
Patrícia earned her MSc. from the UEFS (Brazil) working with systematics and macroevolution of neotropical climbing plants, especially focusing on the role of climbing mechanisms in their diversification. Currently, she is a PhD student at UFRGS (Brazil) under the supervision of Dr. Marcelo Reginato and her project involves exploring the influence of cytogenetic characteristics and morphological traits in the macroevolutionary dynamics, geographic distribution and niche occupation of Melastomataceae. patriciassperotto@gmail.com | Patricia’s twitter | Patricia’s ResearchGate

Yacov Kilsztajn, MSc
(MSc student, UFRN-Brazil)
Yacov is doing his master’s under supervision of Dr. Vanessa Staggemeier. He is working with trait evolution and biome shifts in Myrteae (Myrtaceae). Specifically, he is measuring which of two processes – pre-adaptation followed by biome shift, or biome shift followed by adaptation – are prevalent in the group. ykilmail@gmail.com