My research focuses on clarifying the phylogenetic relationships among microbial organisms and understanding microbial genome evolution, including the contributions of horizontal gene transfer and endosymbioses to shaping genomes and accelerating adaptive evolution. As a member of the Bioinformatics and Biostatistics Core at the Wadsworth Center, I am involved in a diverse set of clinical and research projects. I routinely perform molecular analyses with next-generation sequencing data to characterize microbial populations in various environments, determine phylogenetic relationships among microbes, assess transmission dynamics of various pathogens and ascertain their phylogeographic histories, detect mutations associated with drug resistance, and elucidate the evolutionary processes involved in acquiring antibiotic resistance.