Alonso Delgado

Alonso Delgado obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Portland State University before pursuing doctoral training in evolutionary biology. He completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology (EEOB) at The Ohio State University under the supervision of Meg Daly.

His research focuses on the evolutionary diversification of venom systems in marine invertebrates, with particular emphasis on how selection operates across genes, clades, and macroevolutionary timescales. During his doctoral work, he investigated venom evolution in sea anemones (Actiniaria), integrating phylogenomics, ultraconserved elements (UCEs), whole-genome data, and molecular evolutionary analyses to resolve species boundaries and examine how global dN/dS estimates can obscure lineage-specific selective regimes.

His work combines genome- and transcriptome-scale datasets with comparative approaches to understand toxin gene family evolution, clade-specific rate heterogeneity, and the macroevolutionary processes shaping venom phenotypes. As a postdoctoral researcher in the Holford Lab, Alonso continues to examine the evolutionary forces driving venom diversification across marine invertebrates, integrating phylogenetics, molecular evolution, and functional annotation to better understand the origins and trajectories of venom innovation.