Welcome to Chen Lab at the University of Rochester! We seek to understand the evolutionary processes that shape patterns of genetic variation over contemporary timescales. Much of our work combines genomics with extensive pedigree data from long-term demographic studies to answer questions in evolutionary biology and conservation genomics.




The Chen lab is recruiting motivated students and postdocs. Please get in touch if you’d like to join the team!






We acknowledge that the Chen lab operates on the colonized land of the Onöndowa’ga:’, or “Great Hill People”. In English, the Onöndowa’ga:’ are known as the Seneca Nation of Indians, which is the largest of the six nations in the sovereign Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The people of the Seneca Nation continue to practice and celebrate their vibrant culture and traditions. To learn more, visit the official websites of the Seneca Nation and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

To be mindful of our complicity in historic and ongoing colonialism, we commit to dedicating time each year to learn more about the Indigenous communities and the history of the lands we live and work in.

We thank Native Land Digital and the Native Governance Center for guidance on the thoughtful construction of Indigenous land acknowledgements and information on their importance.

We thank the Indigenous stewards of these lands for their contribution to the natural world we study.

News

June 2023

Congratulations to Faye for winning a R. C. Lewontin Early Award!

June 2023

The lab had a fantastic time talking science at the annual Florida Scrub-Jay meeting at Archbold.

May 2023

We got together for lab brunch to celebrate our graduating seniors (Blue, Krisin, and Xuewen) and to start new lab traditions for celebrating both our successes (the win wall) and failures (rejection piñata) over the past year.

May 2023

Kristin and Xuewen both successfully defended their senior honors theses! Also, congratulations to Xuewen for receiving a Grace McCormack Fund for Biology Prize.

March 2023

Shailee was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship and Faye was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Hurray!

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