I am interested in understanding how factors such as selection and recombination affect genome evolution. I am currently studying a large region in the genomes of gerbil species that is a hotspot for GC-skewed substitution. I am asking how this hotspot region originated, and whether the rest of the gerbil genome adapted to its evolution. I have previously worked on the fire ant's social chromosome, a supergene that determines colony organisation in this ant. My work involves the use of bioinformatics to answer evolutionary questions.