The technological advancement of bioinformatics and computational resources has initiated a new era in biosystematics and biodiversity research. The concept of biosystematics has been continually expanded and current systematic study now proceeds through a synthesis of genomics and bioinformatics such as phylogenomics. Shin lab is studying phylogenomics and evolution using various insect taxa. Our lab’s research program is across the spectrum of systematic study – from taxonomy to phylogenomics. The scientific curiosities in my lab are connected through taxonomic information from functional genomics and comparative genomics – to phylogenetic and phylogenomic comparisons that provide context for evolutionary hypothesis tests, classification, and macroevolutionary analyses.

Biodiversity is the primary source of evidence on evolution, and the description and explanation of biodiversity data, its patterns, causes and dynamics are the driving force behind our lab’s insect systematics research program. Biodiversity science is no longer limited within the boundaries of classification or taxonomy, but requires inputs from molecular biology, computational analysis, and digitalization databases. Morphological and biological observations provide evolutionary hypotheses that allow us to seek correlations in and between taxonomic groups.