Sarah Kingan

skingan(at)oeb.harvard.edu

 
 

Background

I grew up in Bolton, MA, a rural town whose main industry is apple orchards. I spent five years in Providence, RI where I completed a bachelors of science in biology at Brown and thoroughly explored all the swimming holes in the Ocean State. After graduating in 2002, I pursued my interest in humans and primates as a technician in the lab of Michael Hammer at the University of Arizona in Tucson. In the fall of 2005, I moved back to Massachusetts and began the Ph.D. program in OEB.
 

Research interests

My broad interests are in population genetics, molecular evolution, and sexual selection. I am particularly motivated by biological and behavioral differences between the sexes and molecular adaptations to mating systems. As an undergraduate at Brown, my interest in science was fostered by David Rand and Marc Tatar, with whom I completed a project on the molecular evolution of a primate seminal protein, semenogelin I, which coagulates into a copulatory plug in some species. I sequenced this gene in several great ape species with diverse mating systems and found a relationship between strength of positive selection and mating system where polyandrous species such as chimpanzee showed stronger selection than monandrous species such as gorilla.

In Michael Hammer's lab, I sequenced Alu-elements on the human Y chromosome and developed novel markers for population genetic studies. We used these Y sequences in conjunction with mtDNA and X linked sequences to characterize the historical demographic factors that have shaped human genetic variation. One interesting result was higher female migration rates among native Siberian populations, and a skewed sex ratio in favor of females in some populations known to be polygynous. I was fortunate enough to be involved with the preliminary work for an ongoing project looking for genetic evidence of admixture between modern humans and archaic hominids.

I am currently interested in characterizing the evolution of reproductive proteins in Drosophila species with diverse reproductive ecology. Female remating frequency is known to vary across Drosophila taxa, which could results in different selective pressures on proteins involved in sperm competition or sexual conflict. In addition, I am interested in the evolution of sex chromosomes and the consequences of sex-biased inheritance on the genomic composition of sex chromosomes and molecular evolution of sex-linked loci. I am developing a bioinformatics project using comparative genomic data from vertebrates to characterize the effects of X-linkage on rates of molecular evolution.
 

Publications

  Garrigan, D., Z. Mobasher, S. B. Kingan, M. M. Pilkington, J. A. Wilder, H. Soodyall, B. Strassman, G. Destro-Bisol, P. de Knijff, A. Novelletto, and M. F. Hammer 2005 The structure of human genetic diversity: A comparison of mitochondrial, X, and Y chromosome sequences. Genome Research. Submitted.  
 
  Garrigan, D., Z. Mobasher, S. B. Kingan, J. A. Wilder, and M. F. Hammer 2005 Deep haplotype divergence and long-range linkage disequilibrium at Xp21.1 provide evidence that humans descend from a structured ancestral population. Genetics. In press.  
 
PDF Edwards, S. V., S. B. Kingan, J. D. Calkins, C. N. Balakrishnan, W. B. Jennings, W. J. Swanson, and M. D. Sorenson 2005 Speciation in birds: Genes, geography, and sexual selection. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102: 6550-6557.  
 
PDF Wilder, J. A., S. B. Kingan, Z. Mobasher, M. M. Pilkington and M. F. Hammer 2004 Global patterns of human mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome structure are not influenced by higher migration rates of females versus males. Nat. Gen. 36: 1122-1125.  
 
PDF Kingan, S. B., M. Tatar, and D. M. Rand 2003 Reduced polymorphism in the chimpanzee semen coagulating protein, semenogelin I. J. Mol. Evol. 57: 159-169.  
 

 

Hobbies

In Tucson, I stated skating with Tucson Roller Derby and later started a roller derby league in Providence (providencerollerderby.com) after moving back east last summer. We had our first bout on May 1st, which was a huge success. In addition to roller derby, I like to cook, drink beer, go to shows and knit.