Kathryn Kavanagh

Kathryn Kavanagh, PhD

Associate Professor

Biology

Kavanagh Research Lab

508-999-8248

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Liberal Arts 385

Education

1998James Cook University of North QueenslandPhD in Biology
1992College of William and MaryMA in Marine Science

Teaching

  • Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy
  • Evolutionary Developmental Biology
  • Embryology
  • Coral Reef Biology

Teaching

Programs

Research

Research activities

  • Adaptive plasticity in thoracic and limb regions in birds and mammals
  • Co-evolution of morphological and life history traits in damselfishes

Research

Research awards

  • $ 599,926 awarded by National Science Foundation for Connecting Undergraduates to Biodiversity Instruction through Citizen Science (CUBICS)
  • $ 231,083 awarded by Office of Naval Research for UMassD MUST IV: Humpback Whale Behaviors in Relation to Human Activities and Structures on Stellwagon Bank

Research

Research interests

  • Developmental bias and plasticity in evolution
  • Vertebrate skeletal development and evolution
  • Evolution of larval-brooding damselfishes

Select publications

  • Kavanagh, K.D. (2019).
    Developmental plasticity associated with early structural integration and evolutionary patterns: examples of developmental bias and developmental facilitation in the skeletal system.
    Evolution & Development
  • Young, N.M., Takkellapati, S., Winslow, B., Kavanagh, K.D. (2015).
    Shared rules of development predict patterns of evolution in segmentation.
    Nature Communications, 6, 6690.
  • Kavanagh, K.D., Evans, A.E., Jernvall, J. (2007).
    Predicting evolutionary patterns of mammalian teeth from development.
    Nature, 449, 427-432.

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