Six University of Chicago scholars were elected to the American Academy of Sciences, including Prof. Joy Bergelson, the James D. Watson Distinguished Service Professor in Ecology and Evolution and chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolution.
Research in her lab is best known for dispelling the long-held belief in the field that arms-race dynamics typify the evolution of plant resistance to microbial pathogens in nature. An early researcher in research on the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, particularly from an evolutionary and ecological perspective, Bergelson and her group completed the first experiments using genetically manipulated plants to disentangle the mechanisms driving observed evolutionary dynamics. They also have pioneered research at the interface of ecology and evolution, namely eco-evolutionary dynamics.
Through her international collaborations, Bergelson has been instrumental in developing genome-wide association mapping in Arabidopsis, providing resources to the community and ultimately leading to the 1001 Genomes project.