Christopher Schmitt
Specializations:
Mechanistic and adaptive aspects of developmental variation in primates
Genetics and genomics
Behavioral ecology
Physiology
Morphometrics
Course idea:
Non specified
Dr. Christopher Schmitt is a biological anthropologist whose research explores mechanistic and adaptive aspects of developmental variation using techniques from behavioral ecology, physiology, morphometrics, and genomics.
Through intensive fieldwork across Africa and the Caribbean with the International Vervet Research Consortium, Dr. Schmitt has collected biological samples from over two thousand wild vervet monkeys. Current projects in his lab using this dataset include characterizing evolutionary patterns in the developmental morphometrics and physiology of various vervet populations, including the use of population and comparative genomic techniques. Dr. Schmitt also investigates the genomics of metabolic function and disorders during development in over 700 fully sequenced and pedigreed captive vervets at Wake Forest University. Work in his lab is ongoing to assess the phenotypic impact captive-identified obesity-related genes in his extensive wild sample, assessing variability in phenotype expression and population-specific selection based on local ecology and anthropogenic impacts. Field work for these projects is ongoing (UROP students are welcome to apply), and can be followed on social media at #BUvervets.