Rebecca Duncan

I attended Lewis & Clark as an undergraduate where I did research in Greta Binford's lab during my Junior and Senior years. I have always been inspired by biological diversity and evolution and since being a part of the lab my research interests have developed to include morphological and molecular systematics, the importance of understanding biodiversity and evolutionary relationships between organisms to ask questions about the evolution and design of certain traits they possess, and using phylogenetics to inform discoveries in fields outside of traditional evolutionary biology.

My research background includes two summers in the UBRP REU program at the University of Arizona and an independent study and honors thesis at Lewis & Clark. For my thesis, I studied the functional morphology of microscopic hairs (called "setae") on spiders in the genera Sicarius and Homalonychus that trap sand particles to the spiders' bodies, allowing them to perfectly match the color of the ground where they dwell.

Example of a Sicarius without and with a coat of sand

Since graduating, I have been working in the lab as a manager/technician and am currently involved in a collaborative project with Carles Ribera of the University of Barcelona on the phylogeny and biogeographical history of the Loxosceles rufescens species group in Western and Northern Africa and Mediterranean Europe.

Outside of the lab, I like to travel, play the violin, learn about computers, and make gingerbread houses with my friend Jason.