Carja Receives NSF CAREER Award for Evolutionary Dynamics Research
By Adam Kohlhaas
Oana Carja, an assistant professor in Carnegie Mellon University’s Ray and Stephanie Lane Computational Biology Department, has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award to support her research on how spatial structure shapes evolutionary outcomes across biological systems.
The CAREER program is the NSF's most prestigious award for early career faculty. It recognizes researchers who exemplify the integration of education and research and who demonstrate the potential to serve as academic role models and leaders in their fields.
Carja’s project, “Theory and Methods To Understand and Predict How Heterogeneous Population Structure Shapes Evolutionary Dynamics,” seeks to transform how scientists model evolving living systems by considering their complex spatial geometries. Traditional evolutionary models often make their predictions by assuming that biological populations are “well-mixed,” overlooking any spatial complexity. However, with the influx of modern high-resolution spatial datasets, we now know that living systems, from cancer cellular populations, to microbial colonies and human populations, have intricate, complex spatial patterns that can significantly influence their speed of adaptation and evolutionary outcomes.
“Our lab studies the ‘shape,’ the geometry of biological collectives — from microbial colonies to the populations of cells that form a tumor,” Carja said. “We ask how spatial constraints and the topology of living systems affect the mode and tempo of their evolution.”
Her team’s approach blends mathematical theory with computational innovation, building predictive frameworks that connect structure to function and adaptation. By uncovering how spatial constraints accelerate or impede evolutionary change, Carja’s work has implications that span disciplines, from cancer progression to the speed of change in viral or microbial populations. Her research will also produce open-source software and visualization tools, enabling the broader scientific community to interpret and analyze complex spatial data. Finally, she plans to integrate educational initiatives in her project, offering interactive visualizations and opportunities for students to explore the role geometry plays in shaping the evolution of living systems.
For more information, visit the NSF CAREER Award website.