Dr. Josef Uyeda

FACULTY AFFILIATE   |   Global Change Center

Biological Sciences

Lab Website  •  Google Scholar  

(540) 231-2119 •  juyeda@vt.edu

Dr. Uyeda’s research program focuses on understanding the drivers of long-term evolutionary change and how these are connected to the ecological, environmental and genetic drivers that we study in contemporary populations. The Uyeda lab works to develop novel statistical methods and software for studying such drivers across the tree of life by integrating process-based models and data of evolutionary and ecological change with phylogenetic trees, which serve as a map for the history of life. Such methods are vital for understanding the effects of global change because they give perspective on the capacity for species and lineages to survive changing environmental conditions not just for our lifetimes, but over the several million-year lifespans of species.

Dr. Uyeda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and teach undergraduate Evolutionary Biology and a graduate course on Macroevolution and Phylogenetics. His expertise lies in Phylogenetics, Bayesian modeling, Statistical Quantitative Genetics, and Macroevolutionary models of trait evolution. He has worked in a variety of systems ranging from microbes to plants to vertebrates, but is most familiar with reptiles and amphibians.

Dr. Uyeda received a PhD from Oregon State University in Zoology and was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Idaho’s Institute for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies.