Hello! My name is Tina Cai. I am a second-year PhD student and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Joanna Kelley’s lab in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. I am broadly interested in evolutionary genomics, effects of climate change, and human-mediated evolution. For my PhD, I use genomics tools to understand adaptation to climate change in marine organisms such as polar fishes.

I graduated with a BA in Environmental Studies and Biology from Middlebury College in 2023, where I worked in Eric Moody’s Evolutionary Ecosystem Ecology (E3) Lab and completed a high honors thesis studying bone density variation in lanternfishes (Myctophidae).

In my free time, I enjoy baking, photography, traveling to the east coast, and hanging out with my cat, Lychee 🐱