Tenure-Track Faculty Cluster Hire

IBG is recruiting 2-3 faculty (Assistant or Associate/Full) in statistical genetics, twin and family designs, and computational research. Start date fall 2027. Applications received by October 15, 2026 receive full consideration.

Announcement

Luke听Evans

  • Assistant Professor
  • INSTITUTE FOR BEHAVIORAL GENETICS
  • ECOLOGY & EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Address

Institute for Behavioral Genetics
麻豆免费版下载
447 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0447

Dr. Evans is recruiting new students for a fall 2027 start date. Dr. Evans is recruiting post-docs.

Applications are typically due mid November; for exact dates please check the听Department of听Ecology and Evolutionary Biology website, if you intend to work with Dr. Evans. Additional information is available on IBG's Prospective Students page and the page.

Prospective post-docs should contact Dr. Evans directly.

Research Interests:

Methods for estimating heritability and investigating genomic architecture of complex traits. Recent work focuses on the heritability and genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders.

Active Grants:

  • NIH/NIA 1 R01 AG046938-06 (PI: Reynolds) Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan Behavioral Development & Cognitive Aging (CATSLife2). Role: Co-Investigator
  • NIH/NIDA 1 R01 DA044283-01 (PI: Vrieze) Deep sequencing, phenotyping, and imputation in large-scale biobanks: A novel and cost-effective framework to identify rare mutations associated with addiction. Role: Co-Investigator
  • NIH/NIMH 5 R01 MH100141-06 (PI: Keller) Estimating the genetic and environmental architecture of psychiatric disorders. Role: Co-Investigator
  • HEV~NI23013 Hevolution/AFAR. PI Evans. Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Awards in Aging Biology and Geroscience Research, "Gene-gene interaction associations with frailty to identify core genes of aging and their biological context." Project duration 01/01/2024-12/31/2026. Total award $375,000. Role: Primary Investigator.
  • 麻豆免费版下载Boulder Research & Innovation Seed Grant, 鈥淧roteome-wide associations and changes with age-related frailty.鈥 Project duration 07/2025 鈥 12/2026. Total award $60,000. Role: Primary Investigator.

Additional Resources:

EBIO faculty page

Current CV

听

Evans Current Lab

Evans Former Trainees

Scott Funkhouser

Postdoctoral trainee, 2019-2021

Maizy Brasher

Masters Student

Travis Mize

Doctoral Student

Publications

Highlighted Publications

We construct a 4-factor genomic structural equation model using 18 measures, unveiling shared and distinct genetic architectures underlying birth size, abdominal size, adipose distribution, and adiposity. Multivariate genome-wide associations reveal the adiposity factor is enriched specifically in neural tissues and pathways, while adipose distribution is enriched more broadly across physiological systems. In addition, polygenic scores for the adiposity factor predict many adverse health outcomes, while those for body size and composition predict a more limited subset. Finally, we characterize the factors鈥 genetic correlations with obesity-related traits and examine the druggable genome by constructing a bipartite drug-gene network to identify potential therapeutic targets.

We used genomic structural equation modeling to investigate the shared genetics of internalizing, externalizing, and alcohol use traits, as well as to explore whether specific domains of internalizing symptoms mediate the contrasting relationships with problematic alcohol use compared to alcohol consumption. Individual internalizing domains had contrasting effects on frequency of alcohol consumption, which demonstrate the complex system of pleiotropy that exists, even within similar disorders, and can be missed when evaluating only relationships among formal diagnoses.

(American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics, 2024)

Gene-gene interaction associations of complex traits.
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(PLOS Genetics, 2023)

Estimating rare variant contribution to smoking traits.

(Nature Human Behavior, 2022)

Genetically dissected the relationships between internalizing disorders and alcohol use and problematic use into genome-wide, tissue- and region-specific, and pathway contributions to the genetic relationships. Provides insight into the genetic basis to the comorbidity between problematic alcohol use and internalizing disorders.
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(Neuropsychiatric Genetics, Part B, 2021)
Testing whether genes thought a prior to be implicated in smoking and addictions explain much of the variance in smoking behaviors, finding that in general they explain very little which indicates high polygenicity and multiple genetic influences.
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(Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 2021)
Evaluation of methods to estimate SNP-heritability and development of improved approach.
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(European Journal of Human Genetics, 2019)