Research in the Chiari lab focuses on vertebrate ecology and evolutionary biology. We use approaches and techniques from a diversity of fields, including field ecology, behavioral ecology, molecular ecology, evolution, genomics, mathematics and computer science, and morphometrics. Main research topics addressed by our work are:

1) The molecular basis of longevity, tumor suppression, and cancer resistance in vertebrates.

2) The molecular, ecological, and physiological determinants of variation in color pattern in reptiles.

3) We have several different projects on conservation genetics/genomics, including studying how organisms may adapt to captivity conditions.