Tunç Dabak

Tunç Dabak received his MSc in Biology from Istanbul University (2018-2021), where he studied antennal transcriptomics and chemosensory receptor gene expression in the bumble bee Bombus terrestris. He completed his PhD in the Department of Biology at Penn State (2022-2026), where his research addressed the repeatability of evolution through cases of convergence, in which unrelated species evolve the same adaptive traits under similar selective pressures. Using bumble bees as a model system, he studied the genomic basis of Müllerian mimicry, integrating comparative genomics and transcriptomics to understand how genetic and regulatory variation drives convergent color-pattern evolution across species. As a postdoctoral scholar, he studies the population and functional genomics of sensory system evolution in pollinators. Working with the squash bees, whose range expanded with the spread of squash cultivation, he investigates how selection on chemosensory genes, particularly olfactory receptors, shapes adaptation across populations. More broadly, he examines how gene family evolution, regulatory divergence and selection shape chemosensory adaptation across bees.