A childhood trip to Cannon Beach launched this Harvard student’s quest to help decipher evolution
OregonLive.com••science
Key Points:
- Ashwin Sivakumar, a Beaverton native and Harvard integrative biology major, developed a passion for birding early on, observing over 500 bird species and conducting genetic research on bird wing variation.
- Awarded a prestigious Marshall Scholarship, Sivakumar will pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, shifting his focus from birds to cichlid fish to study rapid genetic differentiation and species formation.
- Working with evolutionary geneticist Richard Durbin, Sivakumar aims to develop new methods to understand genetic differences between species, addressing gaps in current genomic research.
- His research on cichlids, which have rapidly diversified into over 1,000 species in Africa without physical barriers, could advance knowledge crucial for biodiversity conservation
