Andy at work
Hi. I'm Andy Peters (no, not that one). I recently started as an Assistant Professor in the Zoology Department at the University of Wisconsin - Madison.
Host genotype frequencies cycle in response to parasite evolution
My research addresses questions of how the interactions among genes evolve, and how those interactions in turn affect processes of evolution. For example, I study how constant back-and-forth coevolution between parasites and their hosts (a form of interaction between host and parasite genes) might lead to the evolution of increased amounts of sexual reproduction in the hosts (a process that changes the associations among genes).
C. elegans
My work has empirical and theoretical components. My lab work revolves around experimental evolution in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans; my theoretical work tends to use computer simulations and numerical approaches to address questions of the evolution of sex and recombination.
At the moment, I'm looking for one or two grad students to join my lab in 2005 or 2006.
Andy at home
Look! The ringbearer's not wearing any pants!
The Peanut at 8 weeks
The banner also shows us doing one of our favorite things: hiking in the mountains. But that's not all we like to do -- we like to ski in the mountains, too! Sadly, Wisconsin doesn't offer much opportunity to do these things. We're optimistic that we'll be able to find fun things to do outdoors around here. Fortunately, Madison seems like a fun place.
I also enjoy travel, cooking, photography, reading, and a moderate amount of computer geekery. I'm politically active and aware, although certain recent events have taken the wind out of those sails a bit.
In order to indulge and/or write about several of those hobbies, I plan to get some sort of blog thing up at some point. Once that's up and running, you'll have the enviable opportunity to expose yourself to my innermost personal thoughts and foibles. Or something like that. Until then, this wee spiel will have to do.
About this page
This page looks great in Safari (on a Mac), pretty good in Firefox (on any computer), and really bad in Internet Explorer (surprisingly, it looks better in IE on a Mac than on Windows). There are apparently ways to work around the problems with Explorer, but I don't want to spend my time figuring them out. Oh, well. I recommend that you use a standards-compliant browser like Safari or Firefox anyway.