Jessica Purcell is an Assistant Professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside.She uses an integrative approach spanning evolutionary ecology, biogeography, behavior, and genomics to investigate the stunning evolutionary transitions in social organization that have occurred in many arthropod groups.She began this pursuit by studying the underpinnings of solitary and social lifestyles in Amazonian Anelosimus spiders, and has since broadened her research scope to investigate variation in ants and wasps.
