Han Glavan
They/Them
I am queer and I am an developmental evolutionary biologist.//
I am currently a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University with the Functional Anatomy and Evolution Department, and I cannot say I’ve ever been happier with a choice than the one that I took to switch the trajectory of my career paths in undergraduate. It’s no mystery looking at the evolutionary sciences and anatomical studies that it’s still rather dominated by a majority of non-Queer/LGBTQIA* identifying individuals as well as being majority caucasian, with roots linking back to colonialist ideology. Upon discovering that this was something that one could pursue whilst still an undergraduate at Stony Brook University I was hesitant to become involved given the lack of representation visible to me, I became discouraged. However, thanks to the role models I ended up having, upon further discussion and discovery I found that not only was there was a presence of diverse identities (one that has been seemingly growing in size as time goes on), but that I could be part of this, that I could truly succeed in this.
I was lucky to have a spectacular undergraduate advisor whose guidance, example, and support meant everything to me at the time, as well as other professors whose presence inspired me to continue on and to not give up on this newfound goal. Starting in undergraduate I was put on a project looking into applying microevolutionary trends in primate dentition to predicting macroevolution via matrix algebra and loved it.
Moving into graduate school I found a love for all things developmental and became interested in looking into sex variation and the non-binary nature of sex, exploring how we can define sex based in absence/presence of characteristics as opposed to a binary system. Paired with this I am interested in looking into how sex variation can impact bone health and using reptile models to explore sex development. I hope to keep exploring, and to keep moving forward within the field!