PEOPLE: MEMBERS Gavin Naylor, P.I. , is interested in using phylogenetic trees to uncover information about genetic architecture and evolutionary process. He has a background in molecular evolutionary phylogenetics, vertebrate paleontology , and developmental biology and is especially interested in improving the accuracy of phylogenetic estimation through more realistic modeling of the molecular evolutionary process.   Vincente Faria, (Ph.D. student) is learning the underlying theory and practice for using molecular genetic markers in conservation biology of sharks and rays. These animals combine large size with low fecundity, so they are extremely vulnerable to overexploitation. His research interests center around applied ecology, biogeography, fisheries, stock assessment, and marine conservation biology. Financial support: CAPES (Brazil).   ALUMNI Kent Vander Velden developed software for visualizing differences in protein structures based on geometric morphometric principles. He also worked on retention index (RI) differential and protein structure.   Olivier Fedrigo developed tree-independent methods for identifying those aspects of sequences that are likely to be misleading for phylogenetic reconstruction. The basic idea is to identify and eliminate sites whose constraints shift among lineages such that the evolutionary process of the remaining sites can be effectively modeled as a passive diffusion process.   Toni Ferrara investigated the evolutionary relationships among lamniform sharks using whole mitochondrial genome sequences.   Aspen Garry used morphometric methods to estimate the shape of ancestral sharks' teeth from a combination of extant tooth shapes and our estimated molecular phylogeny of sharks and contrasted the estimated shapes with those seen in the fossil record.   Jin Long   Andres Lopez explored chromosomal evolution among esocoid fishes— a group that exhibits tremendous karyotypic and morphological diversity.