Hopi Hoekstra

Danielle "Hopi" Elisabeth Hoekstra (born 1972) is an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, where she is Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Her lab uses natural populations of rodents to study the genetic basis of adaptation.

She is the C.Y. Chan Professor of Arts and Sciences and the Xiaomeng Tong and Yu Chen Professor of Life Sciences in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. She is also the Curator of Mammals at the Museum of Comparative Zoology and a Harvard College Professor.

In 2014, Hoekstra became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. and in 2017, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hoekstra became the Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences in August 2023.

Early life and education Hoekstra was born in 1972 to a family of Dutch ancestry. Hoekstra's first name "Hopi" is derived from a Dutch term of endearment. Hoekstra attended Los Altos High School in California.

She attended college at the University of California, Berkeley, where she initially intended to study political science. She has stated that at one point she wanted to become the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, but she was drawn into biology by a class on biomechanics taught by Robert J. Full. She went on to work in Full's lab, studying the biomechanics of animal locomotion. Hoekstra assumed office on August 1, 2023.

Research Hoekstra spent her scientific career working to understand the fundamental processes by which organisms, including humans, differ in the natural world. She capitalizes on natural variation in non-traditional model organisms, most notably the deer mouse, Her work is characterized by its an interdisciplinary approach, utilizing both field and lab experiments. Her laboratory’s overarching research strategy is to use tools from genetics, development and neuroscience to discover novel mechanisms by which evolution shapes biodiversity and, conversely, to use biodiversity as a tool to reveal general principles in biology.

Based on this work, she has been featured in National Geographic and profiled in the New York Times.

Behavioral Genetics Hoekstra is best known for studying the genetic mechanisms that influence the evolution of highly complex natural behaviors. In 2013, Hoekstra published an article in the journal Nature on the genetics of burrowing behavior in two sister species of Peromyscus mice; the oldfield mouse (P. polionotus), which builds elaborate burrows complete with an escape tunnel, and the deer mouse (P. maniculatis), which builds a simple and shallow nest. and also are genetically dissecting variation in other behaviors such as vocalization and skilled motor behavior.

Color Adaptation Hoekstra started her career studying the evolution of mouse fur color and its significance for adaptation. More specifically, the study showed how a sequence variant in the Agouti gene changes the phenotype and then linked those changes to changes in population allele frequency, demonstrating evolution of trait by natural selection. More recently, her lab has discovered the developmental origins of complex color patterns.

Honors and awards 2022 Awarded the Lowell Thomas Award 2021 Elected as a Fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2019 Awarded the Hart Merriam Award 2018 Elected to the American Philosophical Society 2017 Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 2016 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 2015 Richard Lounsbery Award, National Academy of Sciences 2006 Beckman Young Investigator Award, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation 2003 Jasper J. Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Prize, American Society of Naturalists 1998 Ernst Mayr Award, Society of Systematic Biologists

Family Hoekstra lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her son and her husband, James Mallet. Mallet is also an evolutionary biologist at Harvard.

Selected publications Hager, Emily R.; Harringmeyer, Olivia S.; Wooldridge, T. Brock; Theingi, Shunn; Gable, Jacob T.; McFadden, Sade; Neugeboren, Beverly; Turner, Kyle M.; Jensen, Jeffrey D.; Hoekstra, Hopi E. (2022-07-22). "A chromosomal inversion contributes to divergence in multiple traits between deer mouse ecotypes". Science. 377 (6604): 399–405. doi:10.1126/science.abg0718. ISSN 1095-9203. PMC 9571565. PMID 35862520. Barrett, Rowan D. H.; Laurent, Stefan; Mallarino, Ricardo; Pfeifer, Susanne P.; Xu, Charles C. Y.; Foll, Matthieu; Wakamatsu, Kazumasa; Duke-Cohan, Jonathan S.; Jensen, Jeffrey D.; Hoekstra, Hopi E. (2019-02-01). "Linking a mutation to survival in wild mice". Science. 363 (6426): 499–504. doi:10.1126/science.aav3824. ISSN 1095-9203. PMID 30705186. Bendesky, Andres; Kwon, Young-Mi; Lassance, Jean-Marc; Lewarch, Caitlin L.; Yao, Shenqin; Peterson, Brant K.; He, Meng Xiao; Dulac, Catherine; Hoekstra, Hopi E. (2017-04-27). "The genetic basis of parental care evolution in monogamous mice". Nature. 544 (7651): 434–439. doi:10.1038/nature22074. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 5600873. PMID 28424518. Mallarino, Ricardo; Henegar, Corneliu; Mirasierra, Mercedes; Manceau, Marie; Schradin, Carsten; Vallejo, Mario; Beronja, Slobodan; Barsh, Gregory S.; Hoekstra, Hopi E. (2016-11-24). "Developmental mechanisms of stripe patterns in rodents". Nature. 539 (7630): 518–523. doi:10.1038/nature20109. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 5292240. PMID 27806375.

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