Dr. Miles Roberts
@milesroberts.bsky.social
PhD | NSF PRFB Fellow | UC Berkeley | Michigan State University | Genomics | Population genetics | k-mers | cats | math | pangenomics wannabe | 🏳️🌈
I've been playing around with running my own AI agents on the Berkeley super computer with ollama and opencode, as an alternative to chatgpt, claude, etc. I am pretty impressed with the results. It's fairly helpful for speeding up some routine coding tasks
How do plants locally adapt to challenging habitats despite ongoing gene flow? Come find me tomorrow at poster 236W to chat about life history divergence on small spatial scales in the yellow monkeyflower! #PEQG26
Do you like Arabidopsis thaliana? Do you like linked selection? Are you at #PEQG26? Well you're in luck! Come by my poster 244W tonight, June 10th, and hear about my attempts to estimate the extent of linked selection in Arabidopsis thaliana evolution experiments.
Big, big congratulations to our lab's PhD student, Madison Plunkert (@madisonplunkert.bsky.social), who is a recipient of this year's Donald R. Kaplan Dissertation Award in Comparative Morphology!!!!
Hello, world! I took a break from the internet for awhile, but I presented a poster at Bay Area Plant Hub Meeting in Berkeley, CA (@aspbofficial.bsky.social). For the past few months I've been attempting to estimate the extent of linked selection in Arabidopsis evolution experiments. More to come 👀
New work from the lab: Miles @milesroberts.bsky.social tried out machine learning to estimate sweep times to fixation and (spoilers) it didn't really help www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... As always, we'd appreciate any feedback!
biorxiv.org
We are pleased to recognize two Honorable Mentions for the SSE Presidents’ Award this year: Skylar Berardi and Miles Roberts for their papers in Evolution Letters! shorturl.at/CpcoY @evolletters.bsky.social
Hey #Botany2025 folks -- Asia Hightower @puffballove.bsky.social will be talking about leaf shape G x E x Development in Capsella bursa-pastoris. Tuesday Jul 29 at 9:15 in Mesquite B!!
Got this email today that NSF is canceling the annual meeting for plant genome research (PGRP) awardees. I’m really sad that I’ll miss out on this amazing networking opportunity :(
Hi #evol2025, our paper came out yesterday and I'd love to chat about it. We used an underused tool for studying parasite local adaptation, the Host Reciprocal Transplant, to study switchgrass and its fungal rust. doi.org/10.1111/nph....
Proud to share my first first-author paper out this week! Can we leverage environmental data from germplasm banks to improve climate adaptation in maize breeding? journals.plos.org/plosgenetics... (1/3)
Environmental data provide marginal benefit for predicting climate adaptation
Author summary Populations of natural and cultivated plant and animal populations will be affected by more extreme climate events such as drought and flooding in the future. We explore whether charact...
journals.plos.org
Last lab presentation today! Grace Zhang will be talking about her chapter 2 work examining the context dependency of tolerance in common morning glory. Put it on your list, Grace always gives a great talk!
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead Very inspired by @evophd.bsky.social's talk at #Evol2025 today! @ncse.bsky.social
"Science depends on K-12 education." Kenneth Miller #Evol2025 The Scopes Symposium was excellent and timely.
Hey, Miles' @milesroberts.bsky.social beautiful paper showing that sequence diversity missed by standard methods contributes to Lewontin's paradox is officially published in @evolletters.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...
k-mer-based diversity scales with population size proxies more than nucleotide diversity in a meta-analysis of 98 plant species
Abstract. A key prediction of neutral theory is that the level of genetic diversity in a population should scale with population size. However, as was note
academic.oup.com
Grateful to be chosen by the Genetics and Genome Sciences program for the Outstanding Student Award alongside my friend @milesroberts.bsky.social Huge thanks to my PI, Eric Patterson, and my committee member, Ning Jiang, for nominating me.
Lots of gloom this week but I'm so excited to be celebrating new Drs Pizza & Roberts with @lars-brudvig.bsky.social @rileypizza.bsky.social @milesroberts.bsky.social
Crazy times, but I'll be advertising for a 2 year postdoc to work with me on new comp. methods to estimate evolutionary history soon - specifically to develop methods to handle missing data (e.g. ascertainment bias, allele dropout). Are you a comp. biologist graduating with a PhD soon? Reach out!
a woman talking on a cell phone with the words " i 'd like to offer you a job " below her
ALT: a woman talking on a cell phone with the words " i 'd like to offer you a job " below her
media.tenor.com
The first session is on May 7, at 1:30 pm EDT. Space is limited so sign up now: buff.ly/lpRvLNP Find a full workshop schedule on the signup page! 2/2🧵
Sign up for GSA's Academic Writing Workshop with Carolyn Beans
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buff.ly
Congratulations Dr. @rileypizza.bsky.social! Amazing seminar, fantastic defense, and well done adding a new (champagne cork) dent to the lab ceiling. Congrats!!!!!!!
Are you a member of the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE)? I'm holding zoom chats during which I will get your feedback and thoughts about what the society can do for you and for the field! Everyone is welcome to join -- sign up for a time and pls RT this!!
Eduardo and I are teaching our 2nd version of this course in September 2025. Do join us, and share deets with your trainees.
Physalia-courses@ONLINE@physaliacourses.bsky.social · last yr.🧬 Interested in Population Genomics and working with ancient DNA? Don’t miss the 2nd edition of our "Population Genomics using aDNA data" course this September — led by @cegamorim.bsky.social & @arunsethuraman.bsky.social www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...
🔥🌾🦬New Pub in @botsocamerica.bsky.social ! We show that the flammability–palatability trade‐offs that operate in Africa also explain correlated suites of traits in #Texas #grasses. @tamu.bsky.social bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Grass functional traits reflect the long history of fire and grazers in the savannas of Texas
Premise Understanding relationships among grass traits, fire, and herbivores may help improve conservation strategies for savannas that are threatened by novel disturbance regimes. Emerging theory, ...
bsapubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
I am thrilled to announce that I have accepted a postdoc offer to work with Dr. Sara Brownell at Arizona State University on a project to understand the challenges faculty face when implementing accommodations for students with disabilities. Excited to dig deeper into Biology Education research!🧪🏫♿
Science funding is not government waste - see my opinion piece in the Lansing State Journal about why cuts to science funding are bad for Michigan. @sciencehomecoming.bsky.social www.lansingstatejournal.com/story/opinio...
Viewpoint: Scientific research is not waste. Funding cuts will harm Michiganders, economy
In 2024, over $1 billion in NIH funding went to Michigan, supporting $2.57 billion in economic activity, according to United for Medical Research.
lansingstatejournal.com
Nearing 400 members on our Zeavolution slack! Want to interact with other members of the maize genetics community? We have a weekly webinar on maize diversity/evolution as well. DM me and I'll share a link to join the slack.
The recording of this past week's #PolyploidyWebinar is now up on youtube! Join us on April 2 for the next one! youtu.be/nBLwF_vgGe8
Polyploidy Webinar 5 March 2025
YouTube video by Mike Barker
youtu.be
Mike Barker@barkerms.bsky.social · last yr.Join us on Wednesday, March 5, at 11 AM PST for the next #PolyploidyWebinar! This month features Maya Wilson Brown on Capsella genetic variation and Nomar Waminal on the Crocus panrepeatome! Sign up (if not already!) to get the zoom: www.barkerlab.net/polyweb
