About Allison

My research aims to understand the causes and consequences of long-distance movement, and how this intersects with both interspecific interactions (especially mutualism, parasitism, and pathogens) and spatial patterns. You can read more about my lab community and the research interests of lab members (which often diverge from mine).

I believe that fostering a diversity of voices in science is both the just thing to do and leads to better science overall (read my thoughts on the role of diversity for theory in biology).

I am committed to providing a safe and equitable lab environment; a commitment I realize in part through clear communication of lab expectations and regular self-assessments.

Read our lab's theory persona framework.

Upcoming

Recent news & events

Aug-2025	Ching-Lin gave a poster at the Ecological Society of America meeting, which received honorable mention for the Lotka theory prize!
Jul-2025	Martha and Allison presented at the Movement Ecology of Animals GRC meeting
July-2025	Martha's paper on how extreme climate events impact migratory populations was accepted in Ecosphere!
May-2025	Steph presented a poster at the BioGeoEvolution conference
May-2025	Martha defended her PhD and is headed to a postdoc position this fall with Theresa Ong!
May-2025	Allison received the Provost's Unit Service Award
Apr-2025	Our many-authored paper on biases in movement ecology from discussions back in 2023 was accepted in Proc B!
Feb-2025	Allison taught at the Serrapilheira Training Program in Quantitative Ecology
Jan-2025	Cece and Martha's paper on how infection resistance shapes evolution of pathogen strategy within migratory hosts was accepted in PLoS One!
Jan-2025	Peter and Naven's paper on coinvasion among mutualists and competitors was accepted in Ecology!
Jan-2025	Allison gave a poster at the ASN Asilomar conference con the theory personas work
Sept-2024	Martha's paper on phenological mismatch and migration cues was accepted in Oikos!
Sept-2024	Ching-Lin and Peter (re)joined the lab and start their PhDs in EEB
Aug-2024	Dennis defended his PhD and is starting a postdoc with Jesús Pinto-Ledezma and Paul Moorcroft!
Aug-2024	Allison gave a poster at the 2024 Ecological Society of America (ESA) annual meeting on our lab's theory persona framework.
July-2024	Cece gave a poster at the 2024 Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology
Jul-2024	Paper that we wrote as a lab on theory personas (a guide on how to frame theoretical research questions) was accepted in Proc B!
Jul-2024	Steph gave a poster at the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) conference
Jul-2024	New paper led by Celina showing how different forms of host dispersal shapes parasites prevalence is out in Phil Trans B, as part of an issue on species interactions and dispersal.
Jun-2024	Martha gave a poster at the 2024 Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases (EEID) conference
May-2024	Naven defended his PhD and is off to a postdoc at the National Centre for Biological Sciences!
May-2024	Peter and Ruby graduated!
Apr-2024	Steph gave a talk at the 2024 Yosemite Symbiosis Workshop
Apr-2024	Peter was selected for an NSF GRFP Fellowship. Congratulations!
Mar-2024	Allison gave a seminar at University of Toronto Scarborough, Department of Biological Sciences
Mar-2024	Steph joined the lab (after starting their PhD in EEB last fall)
Feb-2024	Martha's paper on how pathogen virulence evolves following spillover from resident to migratory hosts was accepted in Journal of Animal Ecology!
Jan-2024	Allison gave a (virtual) talk at the Instituto Serrapilheira in Brazil as part of the Training Program in Quantitative Ecology
Jan-2024	Naven's paper on how mutualisms shape range expansion speeds is out in Ecology!
Aug-2023	Naven's paper on how mutualisms shape range expansion speeds was accepted in Ecology! Read the press release
Aug-2023	Peter gave a poster presentation at the 2023 Ecological Society of America meeting...and won the Simberloff Award for best poster presentation!
Aug-2023	New paper with Marie Levet and Sandra Binning presenting a broad evolutionary framework to understand selective pressures of parasites on migration distance is accepted in Ecology Letters.
Jun-2023	New paper with Lauren Sullivan is out in Ecology!
Jun-2023	Naven gave a talk at the 2023 Evolution meeting
May-2023	The 2023 Gordon Research Conference on movement ecology of animals! Allison, Dennis and Martha all presented. Martha and Dennis also presented at the earlier Gordon Research Seminar
May-2023	New paper with Frithjof Lutscher and Lea Popovic is out in Ecology Letters!
May-2023	Fellowship round-up! Cece was awarded an REU for summer 2023 at Northwestern. Dennis was awarded the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship for 2023-2024. Martha was awarded the Torske Klubben Fellowship for 2023-2024. Congratulations!
May-2023	Allison gave a talk at the St. Olaf College Math Bio Symposium!
Mar-2023	The papers from our ESA sessions on mutualism are now online in Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America! Chris and Allison's paper on movement and mutualisms, Naven's paper on theory and mutualisms
Mar-2023	paper by Allison, Martha, Meggan, and Sandra on using evolutionary game theory to study migration is now out in Phil Trans B, as part of the special issue for the 50th anniversary of John Maynard Smith's work.
Jan-2023	Naven gave a talk at the ASN Asilomar conference
Jan-2023	Amanda's paper on theory for dispersal in urban environments is out in Population Ecology!