Javier H. Santos
PhD Student
Collaborator MNCN-CSIC/ Universitat de Barcelona PhD student
American born, I moved to Spain where I graduated in Environmental and Systems Biology at the University of Salamanca. During my fourth year I was awarded an ERASMUS grant to study at the University of Ghent in Belgium, where I carried out a thesis investigation under Prof. Dr. Dominique Adriaens, which was awarded at the Benelux Congress of Zoology the following year. When I returned to Spain, I obtained a Master's degree in Evolutionary Biology through the Complutense University of Madrid. At the same time, I became acquainted with Dr. David Vieites at the National History Museum in Madrid (MNCN-CSIC), and have collaborated with him in various projects until the present. He is also the director of my PhD.
I am integrative evolutionary biologist specialized in aspects of evolutionary morphology. I am interested in functionally relevant morphological variation in biomechanical systems and the development of structural adaptations in ecomorphological and evolutionary contexts.
My work focuses on the evolutionary morphology of vertebrate systems. I perform geometric morphometric analysis with 2D and 3D biological models, and am also concerned in the application of finite element modeling (FEM) with the intention of generating biomimetic systems for human engineering.
As an associated researcher at the Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates Lab, UGent, I examine trophic adaptations in cichlid fish as a model to investigate functional differences due to morphological variation in specialized feeders and hybrids through ontogeny.
As a collaborator at the MNCN-CSIC I have been involved in research covering altitudinal shape variation in Eurasian rodents, landscape genetics of Iberian amphibians, as well as technical work creating and processing digital models of the Museum's collections.
The focus of my PhD is to compare the disparity of morphological variation with that of genetic variation in the adaptive radiation of Malagasy frogs, using the biomechanical system involved in jumping to test whether the process of miniaturization has affected dispersal capability.
