YAEL KISEL

Currently seeking postdoctoral employment/funding

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 Fellowshipand 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:

2009Workshop on Molecular Evolution, Český Krumlov, Czech Republic

2008GIS for Expeditions and Fieldwork, Royal Geographic Society, London, UK

2008SAM: Spatial Analysis in Macroecology, Silwood Park, UK

2007Generalised 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 B2011. 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

2007-2010United States National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

2006-2009Deputy Rector’s Scholarship, Imperial College London

2001-2005Regent’s Scholarship, University of California

Distinctions

20112nd place candidate, UC Davis Center for Population Biology Postdoc Fellow search

2008Best presentation, London Evolutionary Research Network conference

2005Sweeney Award for outstanding academic achievement as an undergraduate in biology, Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department, UCSB

Research Grants

2009Travel Award, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, for PhD fieldwork ($1000)

2008Sigma Xi Grant in Aid of Research, for PhD fieldwork ($500)

2008Kew Bentham-Moxon Trust Grant, for PhD fieldwork (£2600)

2008Central Research Fund Grant, University of London, for PhD fieldwork (£1800)

2004C.H. Muller Award, Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department, UCSB, for an independent undergraduate research project ($800)

Other Grants

2010Travel Grant, European Society of Evolutionary Biology, for Evolution 2010 (750€)

2010Travel Grant, American Society of Naturalists, for Evolution 2010 ($500)

PRESENTATIONS

Talks at conferences

2010Evolution 2010, Portland, USA

2008Prize, best presentation: London Evolutionary Research Network, UK

2008NERC Centre for Population Biology Workshop: Outstanding questions in speciation research, Silwood Park Campus, Imperial College London, UK (invited)

Invited seminars

2011Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

2011Center for Population Biology, UC Davis, USA

2011Naturalis Museum, Leiden, Netherlands

2011Dept. of Forest Sciences and Ecology, Georg-August Universitat Göttingen, Germany

2010Silwood Park, Imperial College London, UK

Posters

2011Advances in Biogeography: Early Career conference, Oxford, UK

200912th Congress of the European Society of Evolutionary Biology, Turin, Italy

2009Symposium: Evolutionary islands 150 years after Darwin, Naturalis Museum, Leiden, Netherlands

2008Symposium: Challenges in speciation research, University of Sheffield, UK

2007Young Systematists Forum, London, UK

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Supervision
2009 / MSc Conservation Science / Co-supervised an MSc student doing a project on mycorrhizal fungi diversity in Costa Rican orchids
Tutoring (small group teaching)
2008 / 2nd year undergraduate Biology / Statistics in R
2007 / MSc Conservation Science / 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
3rd year undergraduate Biology / Heathland ecology
MSc Ecology, Evolution, Conservation / Bacterial evolution; Statistics in R
MSc Conservation Science / Statistics clinic
2006 / 1st year undergraduate Biology / Organism biology - Protoctista

FIELD EXPERIENCE

2008 & 2009Collecting orchids throughout Costa Rica for PhD research (independently planned)

2006Vegetation and water quality monitoring in 4 national parks & monuments in Utah, as a Student Conservation Association volunteer with the National Park Service

2002 & 2004Vegetation sampling in California native grasslands, as a research assistant for a restoration ecology study run by the Reichman Lab, UCSB

OTHER EXPERIENCE

2009Invited 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 - 2009President, 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