Assistant Professor;
Ph.D., University of Idaho, 2006

POSITIONS AVAILABLE for postdoctoral investigators, graduate students, and undergraduate students (starting in 2008).

Research and Professional Interests:

My research investigates the molecular and statistical properties of adaptive evolution. The overarching goal of my work is to develop a robust, quantitative model of adaptive evolution at the molecular level and the statistical methology to test the model predictions and assumptions, but the available empirical data are insufficient for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of current models and guiding future efforts. My research therefore also involves generating empirical data sets using experimental evolution approaches.

Joyce, P., D. R. Rokyta, C. J. Beisel, and H. A. Orr. 2008. A general extreme value theory model for the adaptation of DNA sequences under strong selection and weak mutation. Genetics 180:1627-1643.

Rokyta, D. R., C. J. Beisel, P. Joyce, M. T. Ferris, C. L. Burch, and H. A. Wichman. 2008. Beneficial fitness effects are not exponential for two viruses. Journal of Molecular Evolution 67:368-376.

Beisel, C. J., D. R. Rokyta, H. A. Wichman, and P. Joyce. 2007. Testing the extreme value domain of attraction for distributions of beneficial fitness effects. Genetics 176:2441-2449.

Rokyta, D. R., C. J. Beisel, and P. Joyce. 2006. Properties of adaptive walks on uncorrelated landscapes under strong selection and weak mutation. Journal of Theoretical Biology 243:114–120.

Rokyta DR, Burch CL, Caudle SB, Wichman HA. 2006. Horizontal gene transfer and the evolution of microvirid coliphage genomes. Journal of Bacteriology 188:1134–1142. (featured on the cover)

Rokyta, D. R., P. Joyce, S. B. Caudle, and H. A. Wichman. 2005. An empirical test of the mutational landscape model of adaptation using a single-stranded DNA virus. Nature Genetics 37: 441–444 (featured in News and Views).

Bull, J. J., M. R. Badgett, D. Rokyta, and I. J. Molineux. 2003. Experimental evolution yields hundreds of mutations in a functional viral genome. Journal of Molecular Evolution 57:241–248.

Rokyta, D., M. R. Badgett, I. J. Molineux, and J. J. Bull. 2002. Experimental genomic evolution: extensive compensation for loss of DNA ligase activity in a virus. Molecular Biology and Evolution 19:230–238.

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