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Dr. John Robinson received an MS in Marine Biology from the College of Charleston and a PhD in Genetics from the University of Georgia. He completed postdoctoral fellowships with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the City College of New York, and he worked for 2 years as an Assistant Marine Scientist with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources before joining the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife at Michigan State University, where he served as an Assistant Professor for 7 years. Although John returned to Georgia in 2022, he continues to advise students and work with colleagues from Michigan State University.

John’s research interests are centered on the field of population genetics and, in particular, the utility of genetic datasets for addressing challenging questions in conservation and management. His research to date has been conducted across a wide variety of systems, spanning taxonomic boundaries. The unifying theme of John’s research is the application of molecular tools in population and community ecology. Previous projects have collected and analyzed genetic or genomic data from freshwater and marine fishes and invertebrates, insects, birds, and trees. Recent and ongoing projects include population genomic research (e.g., reconstructing post-glacial range expansions in eastern North American trees, inferring invasion routes for non-native fishes and invertebrates, and estimating effective population size of invasive sea lamprey populations in the Great Lakes) and applications of environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding and amplicon sequencing (e.g., characterizing diversity of wetland herpetofauna and fish communities, assessing sea lamprey diet composition in the Great Lakes). John’s population genomic research frequently employs simulation-based approaches, including Approximate Bayesian Computation, to fit and compare alternative models of demographic history. John has published 30 papers across a variety of study systems and mentored 20 undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers at the College of Charleston and Michigan State University.

John joined the Editorial Board of Environmental Biology of Fishes in 2022, bringing his valuable expertise in molecular ecology to the role of Advisory Editor. He has also been a reviewer for different journals such as Molecular Ecology, Evolutionary Applications, and Environmental DNA.