Ongoing projects in general bioinformatics, phylogenetics, and local extinctions reveal the factors behind evolutionary relationships and explore the implications of climate change on biodiversity and its structures. We encourage students interested in biology to join us and bring their own ideas toward an official lab project.
The lab
The Data Diversity Lab, established in 2023 and located in the main campus of the University of Arizona, is led by Dr. Cristian Román-Palacios, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist interested in solving long-standing questions in biology using bioinformatic and machine learning methods applied to big datasets. Some of our papers in evolutionary biology, conservation biology, ecology, biostatistics, and climate change, among other fields have been published in the journals PNAS, Proceedings B, Evolution, Journal of Biogeography, Evolution Letters, Global Ecology and Biogeography, among others.
The Data Diversity Lab team presents itself as a continuation of a strong source of high-quality and world-impactful research. We are interested in collaborating with students and researchers interested in using large datasets to answer a varied number of questions in different fields. We welcome individuals interested in using methods to answer questions in biology and related fields, to those particularly interested in developing tools and algorithms to be used more transversally.
We encourage you to get to know our team, our lab space, and reach out to us for questions and or potential collaborations!
What we work on
Five connected areas. Select any to read more.
We develop machine learning methods for applications from biology to environmental science. You can contribute to building cutting-edge algorithms while applying them to real challenges, like predicting climate trends and their implications for biodiversity, and forecasting species extinction.
Data science is the backbone of our research, whether analyzing biological data, predicting the patterns behind species extinctions, or extracting meaning from large, messy datasets. Join our data science team to help continue this work.
Diversity and inclusion are part of our lab's DNA rather than a separate initiative. We believe diverse perspectives drive the research of the future, and lab members participate in work that empowers these efforts, from supporting underserved and underrepresented students to addressing social disparities through interdisciplinary approaches.
Climate change is a critical issue that intersects all of our research aims. We work on projects exploring its impact on biodiversity and supporting environmental conservation efforts.
Explore our work
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