Sophie Jean Walton

Sophie (she/her) is a Biophysics graduate student in the Good and Petrov labs (2021-present). Sophie is broadly interested in all aspects of evolutionary ecology and adaptation in complex ecosystems! Her main study system is the human gut microbiome, which is a highly diverse ecosystem that exhibits rapid eco-evolutionary dynamics on human relevant timescales. Sophie combines in vivo and in vitro approaches to investigate how genetic turnover and maintenance of genetic variation in complex microbiomes is modulated by community context, transient perturbations (such as antibiotics) and ecological shifts (such as host aging and diet shifts). She is also interested in speciation and genome evolution in gut bacteria, and how these processes are shaped by ecological contexts. Sophie did her undergraduate work in Bioengineering with a minor in Information in Data Science at Caltech, where she worked on C. elegans genetics with Paul Sternberg, protein engineering with Possu Huang, and control theory for cell population control with Richard Murray.