Kathryn Lord, phd
Kathryn Lord is a research specialist in the Karlsson lab at The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, with Dr. Raymond Coppinger. As a postdoctoral associate at UMass Chan Medical School, she incorporated genomics into her interest in the evolution and development of animal behavior. Kathryn’s work is centered around finding a deeper understanding of how genes and environment interact to allow for rapid evolution, particularly to human environments. Her work mainly focuses on members of the genus Canis. She has published on topics including the evolution of seasonality in the genus Canis, the function of barking in birds and mammals, the primary critical period of socialization in dogs and wolves, the lack of scientific support for the concept of the domestication syndrome and the behavioral genetics of pet dogs.