Jesse Dylan Hollister

Fields of Interest:

• Evolutionary and comparative genomics and epigenetics of flowering plants
• Evolution of plant reproductive systems and pollinator coevolution
• Coral reef ecology and conservation
• Biogeography and evolutionary ecology of Vietnamese wildlife

Education:

PhD: 2009 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, USA

Bio:

Jesse Hollister is an evolutionary geneticist whose research has focused on genome evolution and epigenetics in flowering plant species. Before coming to Fulbright, Jesse completed postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University and the University of Toronto and was an assistant professor at Stony Brook University in New York. He was also a Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine of the USA, serving in the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law (2012 fellow).

Since arriving at Fulbright in 2023, Jesse has taught courses on the scientific method, biological statistics, organismal biology, genetics and genomics, and evolution. In his courses, he encourages students to understand science as an effective way of knowing, but also as a collection of imperfect and evolving concepts and methods invented by human beings. He works to enable students to participate in transdisciplinary scientific research beyond the classroom – and to explore and connect with the natural world.

At Fulbright, Jesse’s research interests have shifted toward evolutionary ecology, biodiversity studies, and conservation biology. One focus of his current research (with colleagues in the Human-Centered Engineering program) is automation of coral reef monitoring, and conservation of Vietnam’s coastal marine ecosystems. He is also interested in how native plants coevolve with animal pollinators and parasites across ecosystems in Vietnam. Finally, Jesse increasingly explores topics in human ecology and how we interact with other living things in an increasingly urbanized world.

Courses:

• Scientific Inquiry (CORE 104)
• Humans in the Biosphere (IS/SOCI/HIST 109)
• Human Genetics and Genomics (IS 308)
• Biometry (IS 312)
• Evolution (IS 314)
• Plant Biology (IS 318)

Selected Publications:

Hollister, Jesse D., Stephan Greiner, Marc TJ Johnson, and Stephen I. Wright. “Hybridization and a loss of sex shape genome‐wide diversity and the origin of species in the evening primroses (Oenothera, Onagraceae).” New Phytologist 224, no. 3 (2019): 1372-1380

Arnold, Brian J., Brett Lahner, Jeffrey M. DaCosta, Caroline M. Weisman, Jesse D. Hollister, David E. Salt, Kirsten Bomblies, and Levi Yant. “Borrowed alleles and convergence in serpentine adaptation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113, no. 29 (2016): 8320-8325.

Hollister, Jesse D., Stephan Greiner, Wei Wang, Jun Wang, Yong Zhang, Gane Ka-Shu Wong, Stephen I. Wright, and Marc TJ Johnson. “Recurrent loss of sex is associated with accumulation of deleterious mutations in Oenothera.” Molecular Biology and Evolution 32, no. 4 (2015): 896-905.

Hollister, Jesse D. “Polyploidy: adaptation to the genomic environment.” New Phytologist 205, no. 3 (2015): 1034-1039.

Yant, Levi*, Jesse D. Hollister*, Kevin M. Wright, Brian J. Arnold, James D. Higgins, F. Chris H. Franklin, and Kirsten Bomblies. “Meiotic adaptation to genome duplication in Arabidopsis arenosa.” Current biology 23, no. 21 (2013): 2151-2156 *Co-first authors

Hollister, Jesse D., Lisa M. Smith, Ya-Long Guo, Felix Ott, Detlef Weigel, and Brandon S. Gaut. “Transposable elements and small RNAs contribute to gene expression divergence between Arabidopsis thaliana and Arabidopsis lyrata.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108, no. 6 (2011): 2322-2327.

Hollister, Jesse D., and Brandon S. Gaut. “Epigenetic silencing of transposable elements: a trade-off between reduced transposition and deleterious effects on neighboring gene expression.” Genome research 19, no. 8 (2009): 1419-1428.