Kirsten Isabel Verster, Ph.D.

I knew I loved insects since I was a five year old girl and kept putting bugs up to my ear to hear them - until one ended up crawling inside and I screamed bloody murder, to the alarm of the whole neighborhood (we ended up removing it with alcohol, and my future investigations were ultimately far less invasive).

My research has largely been driven by my interest in how functional genes evolve in unique ecological contexts, be they new genomic contexts (e.g. horizontal gene transfer [HGT]) or new physical environments (e.g., toxic plants). The focus of my dissertation (PhD) work was on understanding how HGT led to adaptation to biotic interactions, specifically how insects acquired genes from bacteria via HGT which led to them developing anti-parasitoid-wasp immunity (or, as I call it with certain crowds, superpowers).

I'm particularly interested in the genetic and molecular basis of exciting adaptive phenotypes. Evolution has naturally created solutions to every conceivable problem: extreme cold (ice-binding proteins); extreme heat (heat shock proteins); toxic foods (monarchs sequester cardiac glycosides); inability to see (echolocation). Even severe environments like Antarctica are abundant with life! I think the budding fields of genomics is a wide-open playground to investigate all the ways nature adapts to problems.

As a postdoc at Stanford, I studied a relatively understudied group of insects called brine flies (Diptera: Ephydridae), which live in the San Francisco Bay Salt Flats right next door to Stanford. These flies are able to survive and even thrive in highly toxic environments (water three times as salty as the ocean!) that kill most life forms. I’ve been studying the genetic and evolutionary adaptations that enable the flies to do this.

I'm excited about this project since it will enable me to accomplish a large-scale survey of the invertebrate taxa living in the incredible, unique, fragile salt pond ecosystem.

September 2025