YAEL KISEL
Currently seeking postdoctoral employment/funding http://barralab.bio.ic.ac.uk/people/yael-kisel.html
[email protected]
RESEARCH INTERESTS I am fascinated by patterns of biodiversity, whether in space, time, or across the tree of life. I am particularly interested in the part of macroevolution in creating diversity patterns, but also in the interaction of evolutionary and ecological processes. I began my career as a botanist, but I am ready to study any organism and especially enjoy carrying out broad-scale comparative studies.
EDUCATION 2006 - 2010 Imperial College London and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK PhD - “The Spatial Scale of Speciation and Patterns of Diversity” Supervisors: Prof. Tim Barraclough and Prof. Mark Chase FRS Funded by a U. S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and a Deputy Rector's Scholarship from Imperial College London Proposed a new framework for understanding why some groups of organisms have more species than others, centered on a new concept, the spatial scale of speciation (the minimum amount of area within which new species are able to form). Tested this framework using two case studies, one investigating speciation on islands; the other investigating patterns of diversity in Costa Rican orchids.
2001 - 2005 College of Creative Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA B.A. Biology with High Honors - Grade Point Average 3.99 (out of 4) Advisor: Prof. Bruce Tiffney Senior project: “Integrating spatial patterns of morphology and environment in a wetland plant hybrid zone.”
Additional advanced courses: 2009 2008 2008 2007
Workshop on Molecular Evolution, Český Krumlov, Czech Republic GIS for Expeditions and Fieldwork, Royal Geographic Society, London, UK SAM: Spatial Analysis in Macroecology, Silwood Park, UK Generalised Linear Modeling and Statistical Computing in R, Silwood Park, UK
PUBLICATIONS Kisel, Y., A. Moreno-Letelier, D. Bogarín, M. P. Powell, M. W. Chase, and T. G. Barraclough. Testing the link between gene flow and clade diversification in Costa Rican orchids. In prep for resubmission to Evolution. result of PhD research
Kisel, Y., L. McInnes, N. H. Toomey, and C. D. L. Orme. How diversification rates and diversity limits combine to create large-scale species-area relationships. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 2011. Vol. 366, pp. 2514-2525. invited paper for theme issue on global mammal biodiversity
Kisel, Y. and T. Barraclough. Speciation has a spatial scale that depends on levels of gene flow. American Naturalist 2010. Vol. 175, pp. 316–334.
result of PhD research reviewed in Presgraves, D.C. and Glor, R. Evolutionary Biology: Speciation on Islands. Current Biology 2010. Volume 20, pp. R440-R442. selected for Faculty of 1000 Biology as “Must Read” cited 18 times on Web of Knowledge
SKILLS Experienced with ESRI ArcGIS, and phylogenetics software including PAUP*, GARLI, MacClade, TNT, MAFFT, Muscle, COLLAPSE, and the ape package for R Advanced statistics using R, including mixed-effects models and model comparison Programming in C++, MATLAB, R Molecular labwork, including DNA extraction and AFLP reactions and analysis Population genetics analyses Geometric morphometrics (analysis of shapes) Planning and carrying out fieldwork abroad, including applying for permits and funding, collaborating with local institutions, and managing a team of field assistants Botanical skills: using dissecting and compound microscopes; using dichotomous keys to identify species; botanical illustration Additional languages: Spanish (read, spoken and written), Hebrew (read and spoken), Italian (spoken), Slovene (spoken)
FUNDING AND AWARDS Fellowships 2007-2010 United States National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship 2006-2009 Deputy Rector’s Scholarship, Imperial College London 2001-2005 Regent’s Scholarship, University of California Distinctions 2011 2nd place candidate, UC Davis Center for Population Biology Postdoc Fellow search 2008 Best presentation, London Evolutionary Research Network conference 2005 Sweeney Award for outstanding academic achievement as an undergraduate in biology, Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department, UCSB Research Grants 2009 Travel Award, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, for PhD fieldwork ($1000) 2008 Sigma Xi Grant in Aid of Research, for PhD fieldwork ($500) 2008 Kew Bentham-Moxon Trust Grant, for PhD fieldwork (£2600) 2008 Central Research Fund Grant, University of London, for PhD fieldwork (£1800) 2004 C.H. Muller Award, Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department, UCSB, for an independent undergraduate research project ($800) Other Grants 2010 Travel Grant, European Society of Evolutionary Biology, for Evolution 2010 (750€) 2010 Travel Grant, American Society of Naturalists, for Evolution 2010 ($500)
PRESENTATIONS Talks at conferences 2010 Evolution 2010, Portland, USA 2008 Prize, best presentation: London Evolutionary Research Network, UK 2008 NERC Centre for Population Biology Workshop: Outstanding questions in speciation research, Silwood Park Campus, Imperial College London, UK (invited) Invited seminars 2011 Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 2011 Center for Population Biology, UC Davis, USA 2011 Naturalis Museum, Leiden, Netherlands 2011 Dept. of Forest Sciences and Ecology, Georg-August Universitat Göttingen, Germany 2010 Silwood Park, Imperial College London, UK Posters 2011 2009 2009 2008 2007
Advances in Biogeography: Early Career conference, Oxford, UK 12th Congress of the European Society of Evolutionary Biology, Turin, Italy Symposium: Evolutionary islands 150 years after Darwin, Naturalis Museum, Leiden, Netherlands Symposium: Challenges in speciation research, University of Sheffield, UK Young Systematists Forum, London, UK
TEACHING EXPERIENCE Supervision 2009
MSc Conservation Science
Tutoring (small group teaching) 2008 2nd year undergraduate Biology 2007 MSc Conservation Science
Co-supervised an MSc student doing a project on mycorrhizal fungi diversity in Costa Rican orchids Statistics in R Corruption, governance, and conservation; Bayesian statistics and conservation; Decision making
Demonstrating (assisting in practicals/labs/field trips) 2008 & 2009 3rd year undergraduate Biology Species delimitation; Correlates of diversity; Spatial patterns in biodiversity 2008 1st year undergraduate Biology Field course in quantitative ecology rd 3 year undergraduate Biology Heathland ecology MSc Ecology, Evolution, Bacterial evolution; Statistics in R Conservation MSc Conservation Science Statistics clinic 2006 1st year undergraduate Biology Organism biology - Protoctista
FIELD EXPERIENCE 2008 & 2009 Collecting orchids throughout Costa Rica for PhD research (independently planned) 2006
Vegetation and water quality monitoring in 4 national parks & monuments in Utah, as a Student Conservation Association volunteer with the National Park Service
2002 & 2004 Vegetation sampling in California native grasslands, as a research assistant for a restoration ecology study run by the Reichman Lab, UCSB
OTHER EXPERIENCE 2009
Invited member, Environmental Task Group, Imperial College London. This group of faculty, administrative staff, and students was created in 2009 to establish environmental and corporate social responsibility strategy and policy for Imperial College.
2007 - 2009
President, Green Club, Silwood Park Campus, Imperial College London. I coordinated recycling and composting for our campus refectory and student dorms; liaised with college administration, staff, and students; organized events including an annual Green Week; and led a voluntary carbon-offsetting initiative for our campus.
REVIEWER FOR American Naturalist; Plant Ecology; BMC Evolutionary Biology; Heredity
