Every scientist is the product of a chain of mentors. This page traces the academic genealogy of the Blackmon Lab, from Thomas Park's flour beetle experiments at the University of Chicago through Michael Wade's group selection work at Indiana University, through Jeff Demuth's molecular evolution lab at UT Arlington, and on to Heath and the people who have trained here.
Mentors
Heath's PhD advisor was Jeff Demuth (UT Arlington). Jeff's PhD advisor was Michael Wade (Indiana University). Wade's PhD committee was co-chaired by Thomas Park and Montgomery Slatkin at the University of Chicago. Heath also completed a postdoc with Emma Goldberg and Yaniv Brandvain at the University of Minnesota before opening the lab in 2017.
Thomas Park
Ecologist · University of Chicago · 1908–1992
Pioneer of experimental ecology using Tribolium flour beetles. His competition experiments became foundational to population biology and directly shaped the organisms and questions Wade would later pursue.
PhD, University of Chicago (1975) · Indiana University Bloomington
Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Indiana University. Defined the modern empirical study of group selection using Tribolium and developed the theoretical framework connecting epistasis, drift, and adaptation that runs through the lab's work to this day. Jeff Demuth was one of his PhD students.
Associate Professor at UT Arlington. His lab studies gene family evolution, molecular evolution, and the genomics of sex chromosomes; Heath carried those questions forward and expanded them with comparative and phylogenetic approaches. Heath completed his PhD in the Demuth Lab in 2015.
PhD, UT Arlington (2015) · Texas A&M University (2017–)
Associate Professor and EEB program chair at Texas A&M. Research spans karyotype evolution, sex chromosomes, epistasis, and comparative genomics across the tree of life. Full bio →
Alumni
People who have trained in the lab since 2017. Full profiles on the team page.
Faculty
Carl HjelmenAsst. Professor · Utah Valley University