Melissa Wilson will be talking about her recently published paper about "Women caught in a pickle by their own immune systems." She is a computational evolutionary biologist whose main research interests include sex-biased biology. She studies the evolution of sex chromosomes (X and Y in mammals), why mutation rates differ between males and females, and how changes in population history affect the sex chromosomes differently than the non-sex chromosomes. Generally she studies mammals, but is also curious about the sex-biased biology of flies, worms and plants.

[[{"fid":"95016","view_mode":"teaser","fields":{"format":"teaser","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"melissa wilson headshot","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"teaser","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"melissa wilson headshot","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"alt":"melissa wilson headshot","style":"float: left;","class":"media-element img-thumbnail panopoly-image-quarter file-teaser","data-delta":"1"}}]]

Wilson is also active in public science engagement and outreach. She routinely teaches in K–12 classrooms, and regularly engages the public in discussions about the difference between sex and gender, the importance (or not) of genetic inheritance, and understanding evolution.

She teaches evolution and computational biology.