I am fundamentally interested in understanding how evolutionary processes shape and maintain societies. I would like to know what ecological factors can drive changes in social structure, and which molecular pathways underlie these social transitions. 

In recent years, studies addressing the mechanistic bases of natural variation have been advanced by genomic technologies that enable the application of traditional population and quantitative genetic tools to non-model organisms. These methods can now be applied to begin to dissect the genetic and ecological factors associated with the evolution of eusociality. My work aims to characterize the genetic and ecological factors associated with social transitions in natural populations, and to understand how natural selection has shaped these complex behaviors.