Dr. McClellan has been focused on the molecular adaptation of marine organisms for over a decade. While filling a postdoctoral fellowship in Tokyo, he developed the analytical framework to identify and characterize adaptations to cetacean respiratory proteins. This line of inquiry has been ongoing and continues to fascinate him. As an assistant professor at Brigham Young University, Dr. McClellan worked with several undergraduate and graduate students who were also interested in molecular adaptations in marine organisms. He has been involved in several research projects that identified such adaptations in several species of arthropods, especially shrimp and copepods. While at Bigelow Laboratory, Dr. McClellan expanded his interests to include marine bacteria, especially various strains of proteobacteria. He recently accepted a position at University of Arkansas-Fort Smith and will begin as the Chair of the Biology Department at the rank of full professor on July 1, 2013. He will now be an Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at Bigelow Laboratory.Dr. McClellan develops data analytical and computational approaches to study molecular adaptation. His specific interests include the molecular mechanisms involved with drug and vaccine resistance in viruses and bacteria, as well as the effect of global and local climate change on humans and other organisms. He is actively developing analytical methodology and computer software, and working in collaboration with empirical researchers around the world to characterize adaptation in a variety of organisms, including viruses, bacteria, copepods, agricultural crops, lizards, whales, and humans.Specialties: Evolutionary biology; Evolutionary genetics; Phylogenetic systematics; Sequence alignment; Molecular evolution; Evolutionary bioinformatics; Physicochemical protein evolution; Molecular ecology; SNP analysis, genomic and metagenomic analysis, method and software development, protein structure analysis.