Dr. Qiaowei Pan

I am interested in several areas of evolutionary genomics. In particular, I’m interested in how small genomic differences among individuals of the same species/ population create extensive phenotypic differences (i.e. sexual dimorphism), the molecular regulation connecting the two sides and the evolutionary consequence of this link.

For my PhD project, I studied the evolution of master sex determination genes, sex chromosomes and karyotypes in an order of the teleosts, using several genomic approaches and functional transgenesis experiments.  For my postdoc, I aim to further investigate how polymorphism in social structure is regulated by the ‘social chromosome’ of Solenopsis invicta and to develop functional genomics tools for this species. In the meantime, I’m also interested in sex determination (SD) mechanism in haplodiploid systems and how SD interact with different reproductive systems and caste determination pathways.