Biography
2018 - present: PhD in Biological Anthropology, University of Cambridge
2017 - 2018: MPhil in Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge
2010 - 2016: BA in History and BSc in Zoology (with Honours), Australian National University
Research
Primarily, my research focuses on understanding the evolutionary connections that link all living things - reconstructing the Tree of Life. I work on integrating different kinds of data, molecular and morphological, to reconstruct the evolutionary connections between both living and extinct species - so called combined-evidence phylogenetics. These combined-evidence trees offer unique insights into past evolutionary processes that help us answer some of the big questions in evolutionary biology - why are there so many different types of animals, how do new types of animals evolve and why do some kinds of animals go extinct while others flourish?
Key Publications
Yaxley, K.J. and Foley, R.A. 2019. Reconstructing the ancestral phenotypes of great apes and humans (Homininae) using subspecies-level phylogenies. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 128(4), 1021-1038, https://doi.org/10.1093/biolinnean/blz140
Ritchie, A.M., Hua, X., Cardillo, M., Yaxley, K.J., Dinnage, R., Bromham, L. 2020. Phylogenetic diversity metrics for molecular phylogenies: modelling expected degree of error under realistic rate variation. Diversity and Distributions, 1-15, https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.13179
Teaching and Supervisions
Supervisor: Prof Robert Foley
Other Professional Activities
Organiser - Cambridge Biological Anthropology Seminar Series
