1997-2001: B.S. University of Georgia
2001-2002: Research assistant, Brown University
2002-2008: Ph.D. in Biology, Indiana University (R. Raff Lab)
Dissertation: Role of Axis Formation in the Evolution of Direct Development in Sea Urchins 2008-present: Post-Doc, University of Georgia

I am interested in general in how developmental mechanisms evolve and in particular in the evolution of developmental processes that impact an organism’s life history strategy. In the Strand lab I am primarily addressing these interests using the parasitic, polyembryonic wasp Copidosoma floridanum.
C. floridanum lays its eggs in the eggs of a Lepidopteran host. From a single egg, thousands of offspring develop (polyembryony) through a novel ontogeny that involves a prolonged early proliferative phase. These offspring further differentiate into two distinct castes -a soldier caste involved in defense and a reproductive caste. Recent work has implicated genes associated with germline regulation in other insects in affecting both polyembryony and caste differentiation in this species. I am further exploring what developmental changes are associated with the evolution of polyembryony and caste differentiation in C. floridanum using a variety of techniques including looking at gene expression and function.

Snoke MS and Promislow DEL (2003) Quantitative genetic tests of recent senescence theory: age-specific mortality and male fertility in Drosophila melanogaster. Heredity 91:546-556

Sly BJ, Snoke MS, Raff RA (2003). Who came first--larvae or adults? origins of bilaterian metazoan larvae. International Journal of Developmental Biology 47: 623–632

Snoke MS, Berendonk TU, Barth D, and Lynch M (2006) Large global effective population sizes in Paramecium. Molecular Biology and Evolution. 23: 2474-2479

Smith, MS, Zigler, KS, Raff RA (2007) Evolution of direct-developing larvae: selection versus loss. Bioessays. 29: 566-571

Smith MS, Turner FR and Raff RA (2008) Nodal expression and heterochrony in the evolution of Dorsal-Ventral and Left-Right Axes formation in the direct-developing sea urchin Heliocidaris erythrogramma. Journal of Experimental Zoology(Mol Dev Evol) 310B:609-622

Smith MS, Collins S, and Raff RA (2009). Morphogenetic mechanisms in the direct developing sea urchin Heliocidaris erythrogramma. Development Genes and Evolution 219:21-29

Raff RA and Smith MS (2009) Axis formation and the rapid evolutionary transformation of larval form. Current Topic in Developmental Biology. (In press)

Smith MS, Wray GA, and Raff RA. Revisiting cell lineage and cell fate in light of the evolution of axis formation in Heliocidaris erythrogramma. (submitted)