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Department of Plant Sciences

 

Research group

 

Research overview 

Nathanael is interested in evolutionary novelty, particularly in complex biochemical traits. He investigates the contribution of various sources of variation, especially gene duplication, to evolutionary innovations, using phylogenetics, comparative genomics and gene expression analysis. He is particularly interested in synthesising systems biology and co-expression network techniques to understand how complex traits evolve. He is also interested in core phylogenetic theory, including gene tree conflict, phylogenetic information content, and non-homogeneous evolutionary models. 
 

Biography

Nathanael graduated with a BSc with 1st Class honours in Ecology & Biodiversity and Statistics from Victoria University of Wellington in 2018. He first joined the lab in 2017 during his honours degree, working on the phylogeny and functional evolution on HKT transporters in Caryophyllales. Previously, he worked with Dr. Joe Zuccarello on red algal systematics and Prof. Kevin Gould on the evolution of betalains and salt tolerance in Caryophyllales. He won a Woolf Fisher Scholarship for PhD study and rejoined the lab in 2018, where he is investigating the convergent evolution of betalain pigments in Caryophyllales.
 

Websites

 

Key publications

 

All publications

 
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Mr Nathanael  Walker-Hale

Contact Details

Email address: 
Department of Plant Sciences
Downing Street
Cambridge
CB2 3EA
01223 330232