I am broadly interested in understanding the factors driving evolutionary diversification  In particular, I am interested in understanding the role of geography, ecology, and physiology in facilitating or constraining the evolution of diversity in vertebrates found in the western hemisphere. Currently, this work is focused on understanding diversification in the snake genus Tantilla, which is the second largest genus of snakes in the Western Hemisphere. This group is has highly conserved morphology, with repeated evolution of dietary specialization on well-defended invertebrate prey. Our work combines high throughput morphometrics and transcriptomics with molecular phylogenetics to test for the evolutionary drivers of diversification in this unique group.