University of Wisconsin–Madison
Prashant Sharma

Prashant Sharma

Associate Professor

he/him/his

prashant.sharma@wisc.edu

608-890-2346

Birge Hall

Lab Page

Prashant Sharma

Research

Biodiversity, Developmental Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Genetics/Genomics, Molecular Biology, Systematics

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Our research broadly addresses macroevolution of invertebrates through the lenses of phylogenetics, genomics, and comparative development, with emphasis on chelicerate arthropods. This body of work integrates three avenues of inquiry: (1) How is biodiversity distributed through time and space? (2) What are the genetic mechanisms that underlie body plan evolution? (3) How does the integration of phylogenetic data classes resolve challenging parts of the tree of life?

A microscopy image of a scorpion embryo with certain genetic markers fluoresced in pink and yellow.
Expression of Pax2 paralogs in an embryo of the scorpion Centruroides sculpturatus.
A large and detailed phylogenetic tree forms a circle.
A phylogenomic tree of Chelicerata sampling all orders, constructed with 506 genomes or transcriptomes.

Education

PhD, Biology, Harvard University, 2012
AB, Biology, Harvard University, 2006