Tanya hails from San Diego and comes to Berkeley having had a successful undergraduate research experience in the lab of Dr. Elizabeth Waters where she studied the evolution of Heat Shock Proteins in liverworts. Tanya is interested in evolution of adaptive characteristics in plants and will focus on the evolution of the carnivorous habit for her dissertation. Her research will investigate evolution of chitinase enzymes in the Caryophyllales group of carnivorous plants, including Drosera and Nepenthes.
Tanya has received a 2008 NSF predoctoral fellowship for her dissertation research on chitinase evolution and carnivory.
