Kassandra Ford

Kassandra Ford
Assistant Professor
Curator of Ichthyology and Molluscs, Bell Museum
[email protected]
Ford Lab Research
Education

PhD - University of Louisiana at Lafayette (Environmental & Evolutionary Biology) BS - University of Wisconsin - Madison (Genetics)

Areas of Interest

Evolutionary Biology, Ichthyology, Convergent Evolution, Functional Morphology, Biomechanics, Neotropical Fishes, Afrotropical Fishes

 

Teaching

I teach Ichthyology (FW4136/5136) and will be teaching various graduate-level seminars.

 

Research

Connecting morphology and evolution: My research is largely centered around a foundational and multi-disciplinary concept in evolutionary biology: convergent evolution. Convergent evolution, or the evolution of similar adaptations or traits in distantly related taxa, can occur at multiple levels of biological organization: genetics, development, morphology, function, and ecology. Questions surrounding convergent evolution have not only been the focus of my previous work, but will be the foundation of the studies I will perform with students and collaborators on diverse groups of taxa. My main areas of interest include: (1) Does morphological convergence translate to functional and ecological convergence? (2) What is the genetic basis for instances of convergence in non-model organisms? And (3) How do patterns of convergence differ within and between tropical and temperate freshwater systems?

Select Publications

Ford KL, Albert JS, Summers AP, Hedrick BP, Schachner ER, Jones AS, Evans K, Chakrabarty P. (2023). Review: A New Era of Morphological Investigations: Reviewing methods for comparative anatomical studies. Integrative Organismal Biology. 

Ford KL, Peterson R, Bernt MJ, Albert JS. (2022). Convergence is skin deep: Craniofacial evolution in electric fishes from South America and Africa (Apteronotidae and Mormyroidea). Integrative Organismal Biology. https://doi.org/10.1093/iob/obac022. 

Ford KL, Bernt MJ, Summers AP, Albert JS. (2022). Mosaic Evolution of Craniofacial Morphologies in Ghost Electric Fishes (Gymnotiformes: Apteronotidae). Ichthyology & Herpetology, 110(2), 315-326. https://doi.org/10.1643/i2021016. 

Ford KL, Albert JS. (2022). Is the medium the message? Functional diversity across abiotic gradients in freshwater electric fishes. Integrative and Comparative Biology. https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icac010 

Evans KM, Bernt MJ, Kolmann MA, Ford KL, Albert JS. (2018). Why the long face? Static allometry in the sexually dimorphic phenotypes of Neotropical electric fishes. Zoological Journal of the Linnaean Society. 186(3),633-649.

Honors and Awards

Best Student Paper 

American Society of Ichthyology & Herpetology 

July 2023 

 

BioOne Ambassador Award Nomination 

Ichthyology & Herpetology 

February 2023 

 

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology 

National Science Foundation 

June 2022, $138,000 

 

AAA + ICVM Excellence in Research Travel Award 

International Congress on Vertebrate Morphology 

July 2019, $2,000