Research Interests
Understanding biodiversity and its origin, maintenance and loss is critical to the future of humanity and life on Earth as we know it. While we've gained a tremendous understanding of taxonomic diversity, we know very little about functional diversity. My current research investigates two general questions central to the exploration of functional diversity: 1) what genes and functions exist in nature and 2) how do they shape communities and influence ecosystem operation? The recent advent of shotgun sequencing DNA directly from the environment, a process known as metagenomics, enables thorough investigation of these questions, but is a computationally rigorous process. Thus, as part of my research, I am pioneering general-use computational methods and databases that expedite metagenomic investigations of functional diversity.

Bio/CV

After obtaining a B.S. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Oregon State University, I joined John Taylor's lab at UC Berkeley for my Ph.D. research where I employed comparative genomic methods to investigate fungal genome evolution. I am now a postdoctoral researcher in Katherine Pollard's lab at UCSF and am co-advised by Jonathan Eisen at UC Davis working to develop cutting edge metagenomic methods as part of a Moore Foundation funded collaboration (iSEEM). My full CV.

Publications

Sharpton TJ, Stajich JE, Taylor JW. (In preparation) "Patterns and rates of simple sequence repeat variation in the Fungi." Neafsey, DE, Barker, BM, Sharpton TJ, Stajich, JE, Park, D, et. al. (In preparation) "Population genomic sequencing of Coccidioides fungi reveals recent hybridation and signals of immune-mediated natural selection." Sharpton, TJ, Stajich, JE, Rounsley, Gardner MJ, Wortman, JR, et. al. (2009) " Comparative genomic anlayses of the human fungal pathogens Coccidioides and their relatives." Genome Research 19. Sharpton, TJ, Neafsey, DE, Galagan, JE, and Taylor, JW. (2008) "Mechanisms of Intron Gain and Loss in Cryptococcus." Genome Biology 9 (1). Sharpton, TJ and Jhaveri AJ. (2006) "Leveraging the Knowledge of our Peers: Online communities hold the promise to enhance scientific research." PLOS Biology 4(6).