Hi, I’m Cristina Herren. I decided to get a PhD because I thought that doing scientific research was the best way to solve some of the biggest problems facing humans today. Also, I went into the field of biology because I thought (and still think) it has the most interesting statistics.
Research Topics:
1. Evolutionary trade-offs: Many studies have found trade-offs between different life history strategies, where becoming better at one function means becoming worse at a different function. However, I’m interested in whether becoming highly specialized (i.e. becoming highly adapted through strong evolutionary pressure) leads to a diminished ability to tolerate or acclimatize to new environments. I’m using antibiotic resistance as a case study for investigating highly adapted microbes, and am asking whether antibiotic-tolerant bacteria have more difficulty growing in novel and/or unpredictable conditions.
2. Invasive microbes: For a long time, microbiologists thought that “everything is everywhere, but the environment selects.” This made me wonder if it’s possible to classify invasive bacteria in the same way that ecologists classify invasive species. I’ve been using simulation models and probability theory to identify invasive microbes and predict when they will be able to enter a pre-existing community
3. Modeling microbial communities: A substantial portion of ecological theory was designed with “macro” organisms in mind. However, there are many properties that systematically differ between microbial and macrobial communities, such as the prevalence of asexual reproduction and the potential for cross-feeding between taxa. I’m working to incorporate these properties into existing mathematical frameworks to see how mechanisms common in microbial communities alter the dynamics of these theoretical models.
When not working, I spend a lot of time outside, mostly running and hiking. During grad school, I ran a bit over 3,000 miles, which is the caloric equivalent of about $2,100 of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.