Joanna Rifkin garners two awards

Joanna Rifkin garners two awards

Joanna Rifkin, graduate student in the Rausher lab, has been awarded an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement grant to extend her studies of the evolution of “selfing syndrome” traits in the highly selfing morning glory species Ipomoea lacunosa.  In particular, she has been awarded funds to create nearly isogenic lines for alleles of genes affecting floral size and nectar production from I. lacunosa and its outcrossing sister species I. cordatotriloba.  She will use these lines in field experiments to determine whether natural selection caused the evolution of reduced floral size and nectar production in I. lacunosa.

Joanna has also received from the Society for the Study of Evolution a travel grant for attending the Society’s 2015 annual meeting in Brazil to present a talk on her research.