Sarah Page Lawson

Sarah Lawson, PhD, joined the Quinnipiac University Department of Biological Sciences team as an Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2019. She graduated with a BS in Biology from the University of New Mexico and PhD in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Ecology and Evolution from Vanderbilt University. She continued her training as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of New Hampshire. At QU, Dr. Lawson teaches Ecological and Biological Diversity (BIO152/L), Life on a Changing Planet (BIO358) and Evolution (BIO383). She loves bringing her passion for ecology and biodiversity to her students by incorporating many field-based labs.

The Lawson lab has two main research areas: (1) pollinator health and nutrition and (2) the evolution of social behavior. Native pollinator diversity is crucial for a healthy and functioning ecosystem and the stability of agricultural production. Outside of bumble bees, very little is known about the nutritional requirements of native bee populations. The Lawson lab works to understand questions such as: How does the nutritional landscape shape the native bee community? How does floral resource availability impact foraging habits? How does nutritional availability affect physiology? The main focus of the second project is the evolution of social behavior. One of the major transitions in animal evolution is the shift from solitary to social living. The goal of comparative studies of social evolution is to understand the factors involved in this transition and to answer questions such as: What are the commonalities of social behavior across socially living taxa? What are the ecological/ demographic/ life history predictors of these commonalities?