Assistant Professor, Biological Sciences Department
Email: kpowder@clemson.edu

Research Interests:
The goal of the Powder lab is to understand the genomic and developmental origins of diversity. Cichlid fishes have undergone an extraordinary adaptive radiation, and a hallmark of this is their unparalleled range of craniofacial morphologies, which correlates with their feeding mechanism (e.g. algae scraping or suction feeding). We integrate quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping, population genomics, and experimental embryology to assess how genetic variation contributes to changes in gene expression and function and ultimately results in phenotypic variation in craniofacial structures.