Courses

Michael Pfrender has been teaching at the University of Notre Dame since 2009. He regularly teaches the following courses. For full details on scheduling, please visit the Office of the Registrar's website.

The Earth’s many ecosystems are home to an amazing diversity of organisms ranging from single-cell bacteria to complex multicellular plants and animals. Among these organisms, Humans are perhaps the most intriguing of all. In this course, we examine the evolutionary mechanisms that generate biological diversity by focusing on aspects of human biology including human nature and societies. We trace the history of conceptual transitions that led to a unified theory of Evolution by Natural Selection and we discuss the origins of human nature and the patterns of human evolution. Our understanding of human evolution has increased tremendously in the past decade, revealing a surprising complexity in our history. We examine the role of sexual selection in shaping our phenotypes and societies and explore the relationship between the information in our genes and the traits that make us uniquely human.

Toward the end, we ask the question "Are we still evolving?"

BIOS-60574 Topics in Evolution and Systematics

In this course we focus on interesting and emerging areas in the field with the goal of identifying the leading edge of research. This class is as much a learning experience for us as we hope it is for you. Our general format is to have open discussions motivated by recent papers from the primary literature focused on the population genomics aspects of ecological and evolutionary genomics. The study of the genetics of natural populations began in earnest shortly after the Modern Synthesis when the basis theoretical frameworks for evolutionary theory and population genetics had been established. The advent of tractable genetic models like Drosophila rapidly expanded our understanding of inheritance and mendelian genetics and contributed to the development of a robust theory for molecular evolution that emerged over the decades following. Pioneering mid-century researchers delved into the genetic structure of natural populations to close the loop by making a connection between theory and real populations in nature.

Much of the research we do today builds on this early work and takes advantage of the exponential increase in our ability to assay genetic variation in populations that we have seen over the past two decades. We take a look at the past to set the stage, we critically view current trends and the state of the field, and assess how our own work can benefit from a population genomics perspective. We explore foundational papers and recent treatments to see how the field has changed and progressed (or maybe not). As always, in the background is our goal of understanding how modern genomic data can be used to provide novel insights into the patterns of evolutionary change and the rules that govern living organisms.