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Last Updated: December 15, 2009

Chih-Horng Kuo

Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology E-mail: chkuo {at} email {dot} arizona {dot} edu
University of Arizona Phone: +1-520-626-8661
Tucson, AZ 85721 Fax: +1-520-621-3709

Current Position

2008-present Postdoctoral Research Associate
Laboratory of Dr. Howard Ochman and Dr. Nancy Moran,
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Arizona.

Education and Training

2003-2008 Ph.D., Department of Genetics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA.
Advised by Dr. Daniel Promislow and Dr. Jessica Kissinger.
2000-2003 M.S., Interdepartmental Genetics Program, Iowa State University, Ames, IA.
Advised by Dr. Fredric Janzen.
1999-2000 Graduate student, Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Advised by Dr. Kae-Kang Hwu.
1998-1999 Research Assistant, Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
1994-1998 B.S., Department of Botany, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Awards and Honors

2007-2008 Graduate School Dissertation Completion Assistantship, University of Georgia.
2007 Student Travel Grant, American Genetic Association.
2006-2007 Kirby and Jan Alton Graduate Research Fellowship, Department of Genetics, University of Georgia.
2006 James L. Carmon Honorarium for Innovative Use of Computers, University of Georgia Research Foundation.
2004-2006 National Institute of Health Training Grant, Department of Genetics, University of Georgia.
2006 Franklin College Mini-Grant for Travel, University of Georgia.
2006 Graduate Student Travel Fund, University of Georgia.
2005 Student Travel Grant, National Institute of Health.
2005 Graduate Student Travel Fund, University of Georgia.
2004 Graduate Student Travel Fund, University of Georgia.
2003 Professional Advancement Grant for Travel, Iowa State University.
2002 Professional Advancement Grant for Travel, Iowa State University.
2002 Grants-in-Aid for Research, Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology.
2001 Linnaeus Fund Research Award, Chelonian Research Foundation.
2000 Professional Advancement Grant for Travel, Iowa State University.
1997 Undergraduate Research Projects Fellowship, National Science Council, Taiwan.
1994-1998 Natural Science Talented Students Fellowship (seven semesters), Ministry of Education, Taiwan.
1994-1998 Presidential Award (two semesters, spring 1997 and spring 1995), National Taiwan University.

Publications

Kuo CH, Ochman H. 2009. Inferring clocks when lacking rocks: the variable rates of molecular evolution in bacteria. Biology Direct, 4, 35. DOI: 10.1186/1745-6150-4-35

Kuo CH, Ochman H. 2009. Deletional bias across the three domains of life. Genome Biology and Evolution, 2009, 145-152. DOI: 10.1093/gbe/evp016

Kuo CH, Moran NA, Ochman H. 2009. The consequences of genetic drift for bacterial genome complexity. Genome Research, 19, 1450-1454. DOI: 10.1101/gr.091785.109

Kuo CH, Ochman H. 2009. The fate of new bacterial genes. FEMS Microbiology Reviews, 33, 38-43. DOI: 10.1111/j.1574-6976.2008.00140.x

Kuo CH, Wares JP, Kissinger JC. 2008. The apicomplexan whole genome phylogeny: an analysis of incongruence among gene trees. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 25, 2689-2698. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msn213

Kuo CH, Kissinger JC. 2008. Consistent and contrasting properties of lineage-specific genes in the apicomplexan parasites Plasmodium and Theileria. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 8, 108. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2148-8-108

Kuo CH, Avise JC. 2008. Does organismal pedigree impact the magnitude of topological congruence among gene trees for unlinked loci? Genetica, 132, 219-225. DOI: 10.1007/s10709-007-9167-0

Kuo CH, Corby-Harris V, Promislow DEL. 2008. The unavoidable costs and unexpected benefits of parasitism: population and metapopulation models of parasite-mediated competition. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 250, 244-256. DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2007.10.004

Kuo CH, Janzen FJ. 2007. Longevity, overlapping generations, and conservation of turtle populations. Turtle and Tortoise Newsletter, 11, 18-23.

Kuo CH, Avise JC. 2005. Phylogeographic breaks in low-dispersal species: the emergence of concordance across gene trees. Genetica, 124, 179-186. DOI: 10.1007/s10709-005-2095-y

Kuo CH, Janzen FJ. 2004. Genetic effects of a persistent bottleneck on a natural population of ornate box turtles (Terrapene ornata). Conservation Genetics, 5, 425-437. DOI: 10.1023/B:COGE.0000041020.54140.45

Kuo CH, Janzen FJ. 2003. BottleSim: a bottleneck simulation program for long-lived species with overlapping generations. Molecular Ecology Notes, 3, 669-673. DOI: 10.1046/j.1471-8286.2003.00532.x

Book Chapter

Kissinger JC, Kuo CH. 2007. Evolution and comparative genomics of Toxoplasma gondii. In: Toxoplasma: Molecular and Cellular Biology. Eds. J. Ajioka and D. Soldati. Horizon Press. ISBN: 978-1-904933-34-2.

Conference Presentations

Kuo CH, Moran A, Ochman H. 2009. Non-adaptive shrinkage of bacterial genomes. Annual Meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (Iowa City, Iowa).

Kuo CH, Kissinger J. 2007. Phylogenomic analyses reveal complex evolutionary history of apicomplexan parasites. Mechanisms of Genome Evolution Symposium (Bloomington, Indiana).

Kuo CH, Kissinger J. 2007. Not all genes are equally useful for inferring phylogenies: identification of phylogenetically informative genes and the biological implications. University of Georgia Computational and Systems Biology Symposium (Athens, Georgia) and University of Georgia Molecular Parasitology and Vector Biology Symposium (Athens, Georgia).

Kuo CH, Kissinger J. 2006. Investigating parasite biology and evolution through phylogenomic analyses. Genomics of Closely Related Organisms Meeting (Tucson, Arizona).

Kuo CH, Oliveira A, Kissinger J. 2005. Phylogenomics done backwards, let the genomes speak! University of Georgia Computational and Systems Biology Symposium (Athens, Georgia) and Georgia Tech/ORNL International Conference on Bioinformatics (Atlanta, Georgia).

Kuo CH, Oliveira A, Kissinger J. 2005. Comparative analysis of gene content in the Apicomplexa. University of Georgia Molecular Parasitology and Vector Biology Symposium (Athens, Georgia).

Kuo CH, Promislow DEL. 2005. A mathematical model of host resource allocation evolution: trade-offs between reproduction and immunity. Southeastern Ecology and Evolution Conference (Athens, Georgia).

Kuo CH, Promislow DEL. 2004. Epistatic interactions in scale-free networks. Society for the Study of Evolution Annual Meeting (Fort Collins, Colorado).

Kuo CH, Janzen FJ. 2003. BottleSim: a simulation algorithm of the genetic consequences of bottlenecks for long-lived species with overlapping generations. Society for the Study of Evolution Annual Meeting (Chico, California).

Kuo CH, Janzen FJ. 2002. Genetic variation in natural ornate box turtle populations. American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists Meeting (Kansas City, Missouri) and Society for the Study of Evolution Annual Meeting (Urbana, Illinois).

Teaching Experience

2005 Teaching Assistant, Evolutionary Biology (GENE/BIOL 3000), University of Georgia.
2002 Experienced International Teaching Assistant, International Teaching Assistant Orientation Workshop, Iowa State University.
2001-2002 Teaching Assistant and Webmaster, Genetics Laboratory (BIOL 301L), Iowa State University.

Service

Graduate student representative on the Evolutionary Theory search committee. Department of Genetics, University of Georgia.

Referee for Aging Cell, Animal Conservation, BMC Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, and Molecular Ecology.

Grant reviewer for National Science Foundation.

References

Dr. Howard Ochman (Postdoc advisor)
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 USA
Email: hochman {at} email {dot} arizona {dot} edu; Phone: +1-520-626-8355

Dr. Daniel Promislow (Ph.D. co-advisor)
Department of Genetics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602 USA
Email: promislow {at} uga {dot} edu; Phone: +1-706-542-1715

Dr. Jessica Kissinger (Ph.D. co-advisor)
Department of Genetics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602 USA
Email: jkissing {at} uga {dot} edu; Phone: +1-706-542-6265

Dr. John Avise (Dissertation committee member)
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 USA
Email: javise {at} uci {dot} edu; Phone: +1-949-824-3925

Dr. Fredric Janzen (M.S. advisor)
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 USA
Email: fjanzen {at} iastate {dot} edu; Phone: +1-515-294-4230

Dr. Kae-Kang Hwu (Graduate advisor)
Department of Agronomy, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
Email: khwu {at} ntu {dot} edu {dot} tw; Phone: +886-2-3366-4761