Professor David Rand is interested in how natural selection acts on genes and genomes. One major focus of his research is how the mitochondrial genome and its interactions with the nuclear genome influence animal performance, evolutionary fitness, and aging. A second major interest is how thermal selection influences the genetic composition of populations. The goals of this work are to identify the genetic interactions that allow organisms to adapt to environmental heterogeneity. More details are can be found at www.davidrandlab.org.