Dr. Kevin Bilyk's research is focused on understanding how the machinery of the cellular stress response evolves. That is, to understand how selective pressures act to reinforce or attenuate this machinery, and how its components have been co-opted to enable survival in novel environments. As this response plays a critical role in safeguarding cellular homeostasis, its limits act to define species’ modern distributions and their resilience in the face of environmental change. He approaches this research using the diverse group of animals that have been “stuck in the cold,” as these include living things experiencing distinct modalities of environmental stress.

Cold Adaptation, Cold Specialization, Evolutionary Physiology, Evolutionary Genomics