Daniel Park

I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University. I study how the evolutionary history of species influences, and is influenced by, their ecological interactions. My research focuses on elucidating biogeographic and evolutionary mechanisms of biodiversity patterns in the context of contemporary global environmental problems, notably biological invasions and climate change, with the aim of illuminating how these disturbances affect plant diversity across rapidly changing landscapes. Drawing on the fields of biogeography, systematics, ecology, and evolution, and using big data, my work explores multiple facets of past, present, and future biodiversity to address the grand challenge of mitigating anthropogenic influence on the world’s ecosystems. 

I am partial to plants in the sunflower family, Asteraceae, but during my journey as a naturalist and scientist I have worked with everything from lemurs in Madagascar to giant knotweed on volcanic islands. My research combines fieldwork, labwork, informatics, and simulation approaches across diverse scales and systems, both empirical and theoretical.