Melissa Drown
She/Her
I am bi and I am an evolutionary biologist studying rapid evolution in a small teleost fish, currently pursuing my PhD.//
As an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota (Row the Boat, Ski-U-Mah, Go Gophers!) I majored in ecology, evolution and behavior and worked in a epigenetics lab. I developed a broad interest in understanding the way that organisms respond to environmental stressors, which led me to pursue my Ph.D. at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. My thesis work centers around rapid evolution and uses a combination of physiology and genetics approaches to understand how a small teleost fish may adapt to rapidly changing environmental temperature. I didn’t meet an openly LGBTQ+ scientist until I was a senior undergraduate student and strive to be my authentic self to show other LGBTQ+ students that they can be successful in STEM fields.