Team

Lab group photo Halloween party TAMU tailgate Pumpkin carving Lab meeting

Principal Investigator

Heath Blackmon
Heath Blackmon

Heath earned his Ph.D. in 2015 from the Demuth lab at UT Arlington, where he studied the evolution of sex chromosomes and karyotypes in Coleoptera. He then completed a postdoc at the University of Minnesota with Emma Goldberg and Yaniv Brandvein. He opened the Blackmon Lab at Texas A&M in the fall of 2017. Curriculum Vitae

Research Staff

LT Blackmon
LT Blackmon

Founding member of the lab. LT assists with fieldwork and is currently working on morphometrics of Chrysina species.

Kenzie Laird
Kenzie Laird

Research tech responsible for model organism care. Kenzie is also working on discrete trait PCMs and Betta Fish aggression. She is also a champion archer.

Graduate Students

Sean Chien
Sean Chien

Joined 2022 · Biology Ph.D. · Sean is broadly interested in evolutionary biology and Coleoptera. When he is not in the lab he loves fishing. Website

Megan Copeland
Megan Copeland

Joined 2022 · Biology Ph.D. · Megan is interested in genome structure and has a background in genomics, bioinformatics, and forensics. Website

Andres Barboza Pereira
Andres Barboza Pereira

Joined 2023 · Genetics Ph.D. · Andres is interested in the evolution and structure of genomes and uses theoretical and computational approaches. Website

Kaya Harper
Kaya Harper

Joined 2023 · Biology Ph.D. · Kaya is interested in evolutionary biology and ecology. She is jointly advised by Keene and Blackmon and studies epigenetic regulation in cave fish.

Shelbie Weaver
Shelbie Weaver

Joined 2025 · EEB Ph.D. · Shelbie is interested in the evolution and ecology of crustaceans, studying crab freshwater invasion. Google Scholar

Kiedon Bryant
Kiedon Bryant

Joined 2025 · Biology Ph.D. · Kiedon is interested in behavioral evolution and ecology in fish, studying transgenerational interaction using Betta fish. Google Scholar

Post-Bacc Students

Meghann McConnell
Meghann McConnell

Joined 2025 · Meghann is interested in evolution and computational approaches.

Undergraduate Researchers

  • Kevin Bolwerk
  • Sally Bounds
  • Emily Clark
  • Olivia Deiterman
  • Jimena Garcia
  • Riya Girish
  • Anna Klein
  • Rachel Koehl
  • Mallory Murphy
  • Alex Rathsack
  • Sarah Schmalz
  • Bella Steele
  • Wyatt Stogsdill
  • Runyan Zhou

Alumni