Moore Lab staff have diverse expertise in birds, genomics, geographic information systems, and the analysis of big biodiversity data. Students are trained in these techniques in the broader context of a liberal arts education to foster critical thinking, synthesis of ideas, interdisciplinary applications, and international collaboration.
Dr. McCormack uses museum specimens and genomes to study the evolutionary history of birds, focusing especially on how both ancient landscape changes and more recent human-caused environmental changes affect birds’ distributions, appearance, and DNA. As Director of the Moore Laboratory of Zoology and Curator of its bird and mammal collection, he is a champion of museum collections and their potential for understanding and reversing the biodiversity crisis.
Whitney has experience with genomics and museum collections. She is currently a PhD student in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology program at UCLA where she is studying the genetics of color...
Jenny heads the Moore Lab's outreach activities, planning tours and special events with local schools, collaborators, and the community. She has a background working with environmental NGOs and...
Brenda has experience working with large citizen science datasets and incorporating them into spatial models to understand species distributions over thousands of years. Having recently graduated with...
Russell has explored his love of animals through a wide variety of lab and field experiences. During his free time he prefers to be outside searching for wildlife with friends and practicing his...
Alana studies the hybridization of two species of Calocitta Magpie-Jays and has been conducting this research since she was a Biology undergraduate at Occidental. She currently assists with...
