Name and Cluster: My name is Priscilla Tucker and I have joined the Evolutionary Processes cluster as a rotating Program Officer.

Education: BA, Colgate University; MS and PhD, Texas A&M University

Home Institution: University of Michigan

Tell us about your research: I am interested in mammalian diversification and the evolutionary processes that give rise to it. My recent research includes the study of gene and genome dynamics in naturally occurring hybrid populations of house mice to explore the genetic underpinnings of the species boundary. Using genetic and genomic tools, recent graduate students in my lab have studied hybridization in New World monkeys, dispersal dynamics of small mammals in tropical agroecosystems, and range expansion of a North American mesopredator.

Why do you want to serve with NSF?  Throughout my career I have served on NSF panels. I found the review process a collective enterprise among colleagues. I greatly appreciated the thoughtful and intellectually stimulating discussion of research proposals, and I always came away from the experience a better scientist and mentor. I hope to facilitate this experience for others. NSF has also provided funding for my research in a variety of ways over many years.  My term as a Program Officer is an opportunity to give back.

What are you looking forward to in your tenure here at NSF? I certainly look forward to working with my colleagues in the Evolutionary Processes cluster and across DEB more generally.  It is a chance to help push the frontiers of evolutionary and ecological research in exciting directions and to promote the important contributions of ecologists and evolutionary biologists to the scientific community and to society, more generally.