Matt Barker
Graduate Student
msbarke@g.clemson.edu
Biosketch
I am originally from East Helena, Montana and attended the University of Montana where I received a bachelor’s degree in biology. During my undergraduate, I helped conduct research on Coxiella burnetii, a bacterial pathogen that causes Q fever in humans and livestock. After graduating, I worked as a postbaccalaureate fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland in Dr. Benjamin White’s lab. Here, I studied the neural and genetic underpinnings of Drosophila ecdysis. I eventually made my way to Savannah, Georgia, where I worked as an environmental chemical analyst. I am now a member of Kelsey Witt Dillon’s lab at Clemson University earning a Ph.D. in the department of genetics and biochemistry.
Research Interests
My Ph.D. research will be conducted under Dr. Kelsey Witt Dillon and will broadly be concerned with human population genetics. As humans inhabited the Earth, they were put under selective pressures to adapt genetically to their local environments. I am interested in using modern-day and ancient DNA datasets to identify and characterize local adaptation in human genomes. This can provide important information on health and can improve our understanding of human evolution.
Publications
Sullivan, L. F., Barker, M. S., Felix, P. C., Vuong, R. Q. & White, B. H. Neuromodulation and the toolkit for behavioural evolution: can ecdysis shed light on an old problem? FEBS Journal vol. 291 1049–1079 at https://doi.org/10.1111/febs.16650 (2024).