I'm from Asheville, North Carolina. While growing up, I spent most of my time in streams along the NC:TN line looking for fish, crayfish, and salamanders. I earned my B.S. at Lees McRae College, a small private college in Northwestern NC, then received my M.S. from Appalachian State University, followed by my Ph.D. in 2017 from Auburn University, while studying the evolutionary ecology of Neotropical cichlid fishes in the Armbruster lab.

 

I'm currently a postdoctoral scholar in the Wainwright lab at University of California, Davis.

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I'm interested in evolutionary ecology, particularly topics such as adaptive radiation, ecological opportunity, adaptive landscapes, morphological diversification, and phenotypic innovations. I mostly study cichlid fishes and test hypotheses about how their morphological and ecological diversity arose. Currently, I am focused on the evolution of fish jaw systems, including the oral and pharyngeal jaws. I'm also working on various "side projects" with sunfishes, minnows, and tetras, which mostly involve community- or population-scale questions about food web dynamics.

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I also have real-world interests like basketball, gaming, disc golf, listening to music, flat-billed hats, fly fishing, salamanders, oops I'm talking about biology again.

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Edward D. Burress, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Scholar

Department of Evolution and Ecology

University of California, Davis

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edwarddburress'at'gmail'dot'com

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