I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Evolution and Ecology (summa cum laude) from the University of California, Davis. At UC Davis, I worked with Jay Stachowicz to understand the recruitment patterns of fouling invertebrates and the role of predators in fouling community structure. At this time, I was introduced to ascidians because they were important members of the fouling community. I transitioned to evolutionary biology for my PhD at Cornell University, working with Rick Harrison on speciation and phylogenetics in the solitary ascidian genus Ciona (Nydam & Harrison, 2010). I chose this genus because Ciona robusta was the only species in the fouling community with a sequenced genome. For my postdoctoral work at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the laboratory of Tony De Tomaso, I focused on the evolution of allorecognition in Botryllus schlosseri (Nydam, Taylor, & De Tomaso, 2013).

Since 2012, I have been teaching and mentoring students in ascidian research at small liberal arts colleges: Centre College in Danville, KY, USA from 2012 to 2019 and Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo, CA, USA from 2019 to present. I have mentored ~20 female research students during this time, many of whom are co-authors on my publications. I have particularly enjoyed taking my students on collecting trips in England, France, Spain, and Florida.

While I have continued my work with Ciona introgression and Botryllus schlosseri allorecognition since becoming a faculty member (Nydam et al., 2017; Nydam, Giesbrecht, & Stephenson, 2017; Nydam, Stephenson, Waldman, & De Tomaso, 2017), I have also developed four new research areas, all with female collaborators. First, building on the work of Gretchen and Charles Lambert, I compared the ascidian community composition in California and Florida marinas at two time points, ~20 years apart (Nichols, Lambert, & Nydam, 2023; Nydam, Nichols, & Lambert, 2022), and I continue to survey the ascidian communities in southern California with a particular emphasis on identifying newly arrived species (Nydam, Stefaniak, Lambert, Counts, & López-Legentil, 2022; Figure 1). Second, I have worked with Lilian Palomino Alvarez and Rosana Rocha to describe 13 new species of ascidians in Mexico (Palomino-Alvarez, Nydam, Rocha, & Simoes, 2022). Third, with C. Sarah Cohen and Carmela Gissi I created well-supported phylogenomic trees of the ascidian genera Botrylloides and Botryllus, generating new phylogenomic markers for these groups in the process (Nydam et al., 2021; Nydam et al., 2023, in review; Figure 2). These trees are now being used to study the evolution of allorecognition in this group (Nydam et al., 2023, submitted for publication). Finally, I have received a grant from the National Science Foundation with Lauren Stefaniak and Susanna López-Legentil to develop phylogenomic resources for under-studied ascidian families in the context of species delimitation and microbial evolution in the Caribbean Sea.

我在加州大学戴维斯分校获得了进化与生态学理学学士学位（以优异成绩）。在加州大学戴维斯分校，我与 Jay Stachowicz 合作，了解污损无脊椎动物的招募模式以及捕食者在污损群落结构中的作用。这时，我认识了海鞘，因为它们是污垢群落的重要成员。我在康奈尔大学攻读进化生物学博士学位，与 Rick Harrison 合作研究孤生海鞘属Ciona的物种形成和系统发育学（Nydam & Harrison，  2010）。我选择这个属是因为海鞘是污垢群落中唯一具有基因组测序的物种。在加州大学圣巴巴拉分校 Tony De Tomaso 实验室的博士后工作中，我重点研究了Botryllus schlosseri的同种识别进化（Nydam、Taylor 和 De Tomaso，  2013）。

自 2012 年以来，我一直在小型文理学院教授和指导学生进行海鞘研究：2012 年至 2019 年在美国肯塔基州丹维尔的中心学院，2019 年至今在美国加利福尼亚州亚里索维耶荷的美国创价大学。在此期间，我指导了大约 20 名女研究生，其中许多人是我出版物的合著者。我特别喜欢带我的学生去英国、法国、西班牙和佛罗里达州进行收藏之旅。

自从成为教员以来， 我一直在继续研究海鞘基因渗入和灰霉病同种异体识别（Nydam et al., 2017 ; Nydam, Giesbrecht, & Stephenson,  2017 ; Nydam, Stephenson, Waldman, & De Tomaso,  2017），我已经还开发了四个新的研究领域，全部由女性合作者完成。首先，在 Gretchen 和 Charles Lambert 工作的基础上，我比较了相隔约 20 年的两个时间点加利福尼亚州和佛罗里达州码头的海鞘群落组成（Nichols、Lambert 和 Nydam，2023 年；  Nydam、Nichols 和 Lambert，  2022 年） ），我继续调查南加州的海鞘群落，特别强调识别新到达的物种（Nydam、Stefaniak、Lambert、Counts 和 López-Legentil，  2022 年；图 1）。其次，我与 Lilian Palomino Alvarez 和 Rosana Rocha 合作描述了墨西哥的 13 个新海鞘物种（Palomino-Alvarez、Nydam、Rocha 和 Simoes，  2022）。第三，我与 C. Sarah Cohen 和 Carmela Gissi 一起创建了有良好支持的海鞘属Botrylloides和Botryllus的系统发育树，在此过程中为这些群体生成了新的系统发育标记（Nydam 等，  2021；Nydam 等，2023，正在审查中；图 2)。这些树现在被用来研究该群体同种异体识别的进化（Nydam 等人，2023，已提交出版）。最后，我与 Lauren Stefaniak 和 Susanna López-Legentil 一起获得了美国国家科学基金会的资助，以在加勒比海物种界定和微生物进化的背景下为尚未充分研究的海鞘科开发系统发育资源。