I am a PhD student at the University of Leicester. I am studying the genomics of social organisation, focusing on the genomic basis of polymorphic social organisation in ants. Specifically I am investigating the evolution of "social chromosomes", which function similarly to sex chromosomes but control the number of reproductive queens in ant colonies.
More generally I am interested in the major transitions in evolution, and the common themes in the evolution of new levels of biological organisation (for example the transitions from individual replicators to whole genomes, from single-celled to multicellular organisms, and the transitions from free-living to eusocial insects) and their subsequent elaboration.