Michael P. Cummings

• BSCI471 Molecular Evolution
• BIOL671 Molecular Evolution
• BIOL708G Advanced Topics in Biology: Genetics and Genome Data Analysis
• Workshop on Molecular Evolution
• Workshop on Molecular Evolution, Europe
• Workshop on Comparative Genomics, Europe

Our research is in the areas of computational biology and molecular evolutionary genetics, and includes examination of patterns and processes of sequence evolution to understand molecular evolutionary mechanisms that bring about biological change. The basis for much of the research is comparative and includes several levels of biological organization. In addition to answering specific biological questions, a substantial portion of my research has focused on experimental design and data analysis methods. Some of this work has involved examination of the sampling properties of DNA sequence data for evolutionary inference, sampling of genetic diversity in relationship to conservation reserve design, comparison of maximum likelihood bootstrap and Bayesian posterior probability values, hypothesis testing using tree-based statistical models, and more recently genetic differentiation.

• Roe, A. D., S. J. Weller, J. Baixeras-Almela, J. Brown, M. P. Cummings, D. Davis, M. Horak, A. Kawahara, C. Mitter, C. Parr, J. C. Regier, D. Rubinoff, T. J. Simonsen, N. Wahlberg and A. Zwick. 2010. Evolutionary framework for Lepidoptera model systems. Pages 1-24. In Goldsmith, M., and F. Marec (Eds.) Genetics and Molecular Biology of Lepidoptera. Taylor and Francis. Boca Raton.
• Bazinet, A. L., and M. P. Cummings. The Lattice Project: a Grid research and production environment combining multiple Grid computing models. 2009. Pages 2-13. In Weber, M. H. W. (Ed.) Distributed & Grid Computing - Science Made Transparent for Everyone. Principles, Applications and Supporting Communities. Rechenkraft.net, Marburg.
• Kohlsdorf, T., M. P. Cummings, V. J. Lynch, G. F. Stopper, K. Takahashi and G. P. Wagner. 2008. A molecular footprint of limb loss: sequence variation of the autopodial identity gene Hoxa-13. Journal of Molecular Evolution 67:581-593.
• Regier, J. C., J. W. Shultz, A. Ganley, A. Hussesy, D. Shi, B. Ball, J. Stajich, M. P. Cummings, J. W. Martin and C. W. Cunningham. 2008. Deep-level arthropod phylogeny resolved: a multigenic investigation into the effects of data partitioning and exclusion. Systematic Biology 57:920-938.
• Cummings, M. P., M. C. Neel and K. L. Shaw. 2008. A genealogical approach to quantifying lineage divergence. Evolution 62:2411-2422.
• Grand, J., M. P. Cummings, A. G. Rebelo, T. H. Ricketts, and M. C. Neel. 2007. Biased data reduce efficiency and effectiveness of conservation reserve networks. Ecology Letters 10:364-374.
• Bazinet, A. L., D. S. Myers, J. Fuetsch and M. P. Cummings. 2007. Grid Services Base Library: a high-level, procedural application program interface for writing Globus-based Grid services. Future Generation Computer Systems 23:517-522.
• Lee, S., T. D. Wang, N. Hashmi and M. P. Cummings. 2007. Bio-STEER: a Semantic Web workflow tool for Grid computing in the life sciences. Future Generation Computer Systems 23:497-509.

Ph.D., Harvard University, 1992. Molecular evolution, bioinformatics, computational biology.