Graduate programs

For general information, please refer to the Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies web pages.

The Redpath Museum has an active graduate training program devoted to research in biosystematics and evolutionary biology leading to MSc and PhD degrees. Students are enrolled in McGill's Department of Biology or Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.   Five Museum professors usually are accepting graduate students. Anyone interested should contact them directly:

  • The genetic basis of adaptation to changing environments. Research bridges theoretical and empirical approaches in population genomics, evolutionary ecology, and molecular biology to ask questions about the reciprocal interactions between ecological and evolutionary processes. Empirical systems include stickleback fish, deer mice, anolis lizards, and microbes.
    Dr Rowan Barrett
  • Genetic variation and evolution in amphibians, including the investigation of amphibian population declines and the significance of interspecific hybridization among toads.
    Dr David M. Green
     
  • The evolution of biological diversity: adaptive radiation, ecological speciation, "rapid" evolution, natural selection, and gene flow. Empirical systems include salmon, sticklebacks, Darwin's finches and guppies. Methods include surveys of biological diversity, field and laboratory experiments, molecular genetics, quantitative genetics, and theoretical modeling.
    Dr Andrew Hendry
     
  • Macroevolution  Vertebrate palaeontology is the central theme that supports research projects on palaeomacroecology and environmental drivers of ancient biodiversity, archosaurian (crocodiles, birds, and dinosaurs) evolution, comparative morphology and some biomechanics, developmental evolution of the fish - tetrapod and dinosaur - bird transitions, and, most recently, phenogenomics.
    Dr Hans Larsson

  • The effect of environmental change, in particular climate and isolation, on the morphology of mammals, with particular attention to the evolution of body size: ecotypic variation and climate change; the evolution of species on islands; the effects of climate change and isolation on morphological evolution; functional morphology in recent and fossil rodents; competition and community size structure among coexisting rodents.
    Dr Virginie Millien
     
  • Aquatic invasion ecology, particularly the impact of exotic invertebrates and fishes on freshwater biodiversity.
    Dr Anthony Ricciardi

The Museum also supports the research of graduate students enrolled in other departments, especially the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Department of Anthropology. Anyone interested should contact the department concerned for general information

Land Acknowledgement

McGill University is on land which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst Indigenous peoples, including the Haudenosaunee and Anishinabeg nations. We acknowledge and thank the diverse Indigenous peoples whose presence marks this territory on which peoples of the world now gather.

The Redpath Museum's director EDI statement.

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