Alicia Frame
Contact Info:
Email: aframe at email dot unc dot edu
Office: Wilson 232
Office Hours: 10am-12pm, Monday and Friday
Teaching: Animal Behavior Lab, 278L 407 and 408
About me:
I am a second year graduate student in the curriculum for ecology, evolution and organismal biology (EEOB) in the biology department at UNC Chapel Hill. I am a PhD student working under Maria Servedio, doing research in evolutionary theory and sexual selection.
Research:
Broadly, I am interested in mathematical and simulation models of evolution and sexual selection. Currently I am working on:
Modeling the potential for sympatric speciation
in migratory birds, driven by contemporary migratory divides caused by climate
change
Understanding the role of multiple traits in
mate choice, specifically in socially monogamous species where mate sharing is
potentially costly
Integrating adaptive dynamics and population
genetics models to create genetically explicit models capable of exploring both
slow time (evolutionary) and fast time (ecological) dynamics
Interests:
Most of my project ideas are inspired by birds. I did my undergraduate thesis research on feather degrading bacteria, I’m a member of the American Ornithologist’s union, and I have two parakeets at home, so I’m pretty excited about birds in general. Beyond birds, I also (clearly) really like math, and am excited about trying to apply adaptive dynamics modeling to models of sexual selection. Mostly, you can find me sitting at my computer and playing around with Matlab, Mathematica, or individual based models in Java.