People

David Enard, Ph.D. evolutionary genomics — David Enard, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator

David Enard is the lab’s principal investigator. He is an assistant professor in the University of Arizona Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department and Genetics Graduate Interdisciplinary Program (GIDP). His primary research interests are adaptive evolution, host-pathogen interactions, human evolution, and population genomics. During his time as a postdoctoral fellow in the Dmitri Petrov’s lab at Stanford University, Enard focused on detecting positive selection in the human genome as well as on new approaches to detect selection from frequency changes over very few generations. He earned his Ph.D. in Hugues Roest Crollius’ lab at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he developed a comparative population genomics approach that allowed him to demonstrate that distant vertebrates often adapt with the same genes.

Jesús Murga Moreno David Enard lab University of Arizona postdoctoral fellow — Jesús Murga Moreno, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral fellow

Jesús Murga Moreno is a postdoctoral fellow in the Enard Lab. He is a remote postdoc working from a little Andalusian town named Aracena. Murga Moreno focuses on developing and applying statistical methods to discern positive selection signals. He has been working for a while on detecting long-term selection events by extending and applying the McDonald and Kreitman test on genomic datasets. He now works on inferring the strength and timing of the selection of selective sweeps through Machine Learning and Approximate Bayesian Computation methods. Every morning, Jesús loves making coffee, facing his computer, and doing bioinformatics — from writing code and simulations to helping his labmates with external software and processing data. More importantly, he is finally enjoying science in the Enard Lab.

Genavieve Gray-Sandoval, Ph.D. candidate, Enard Lab, University of Arizona, ecology and evolutionary biology — Genavieve Gray-Sandoval
Ph.D. candidate

Genavieve Gray-Sandoval is a Ph.D. student in the Enard Lab. She is interested in how viruses drive host adaptations and how hybridization may alter co-evolutionary relationships between hosts and viruses. Her research aims to uncover how these dynamics have enabled populations to survive ancient epidemics. Gray-Sandoval earned her bachelor’s degree in biomedical science from Northern Arizona University, where she developed a strong interest in evolutionary medicine. Currently, she is focused on quantifying virus-driven adaptations in Myotis bat genomes. Through her work, she seeks to unravel the evolutionary forces that have shaped the unique immune responses observed in bats.

Addison Lander PhD David Enard Lab University of Arizona evolutionary biology — Addison Lander
Ph.D. candidate

Addison Lander has been a Ph.D. student in the Enard lab since 2022. He is interested in understanding the pressure viruses exert on the adaptation of genomic regulatory sequences. His current work looks at this in both humans and Myotis bats native to the southwestern United States. Lander is also curious about how transposable elements might impact this regulatory evolution in the bats. He received his B.A. in Biology and B.A. in Spanish from the University of Kentucky in 2022.

Mary Reed-Weston has been a Ph.D. student in the Enard Lab since 2022. She is interested in how viruses drive adaptation in hosts at specific steps of the viral life cycle. Her research attempts to characterize patterns of adaptation across the viral life cycle in local bat species. Her goal is to compare these patterns over time with the use of preserved museum specimens to identify recent epidemics and changing interactions with viruses. Reed-Weston received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Carleton College in 2021.

Lab Alumni

M. Elise Lauterbur, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Vermont
Chenlu Di, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Researcher, Lohmueller Lab, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Los Angeles, California
Diego Francisco Salazar-Tortosa, Ph.D., Personal Investigador de Proyectos Internacionales, Departamento de Ecología, Universidad de Granada

The Enard Lab is hiring both postdoctoral researchers and graduate students. Please contact us to inquire. If you are interested in earning your Ph.D. in the Enard Lab, please apply through the University of Arizona Ecology & Evolutionary Biology graduate program on their website.