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Dr. Rebecca Safran is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. She received her Masters Degree in Ecology from Humboldt State University and her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell University. She then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University. Becca is with us today to tell us about her journey through life and science.
Rebecca Safran is the mother of two very energetic kids and an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado where she and her husband, Sam Flaxman, reside in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. As an evolutionary biologist, Becca’s interests are focused on the process of how new species form. In particular, her group works at the interface of fine-scale within-population dynamics and their consequences across closely related populations. Projects in the lab include studies related to the physiological, behavioral and ecological and climate factors that influence genomic divergence among closely related populations. Funded by the National Science Foundation through several grants including the CAREER award, Becca’s research has appeared in Science, Current Biology, and Trends in Ecology and Evolution and many other publications related to evolutionary ecology and genetics. Each fall Becca teaches a course on the interface of climate change and film-making where students are asked to present their views on climate change in several 5-minute short films. During the spring term, she is takes on the challenge of teaching Evolution and Physiology to over 700 students in her course on General Biology.