Rosalyn Price-Waldman

Rosalyn M. Price-Waldman

I’m an evolutionary biologist interested in coloration and color vision. I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Stoddard Lab at Princeton University, where I study microstructural, macrostructural, developmental, and genetic mechanisms of color production in birds. See my full CV here.

Education

2024

2019

2014

PhD Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, Princeton University
Stoddard Lab

MS Evolutionary Biology, San Diego State University
Burns Lab

BA Biology, Brown University
Swartz and Whiteside Labs

Publications

Price-Waldman, R., J. Ali, A.J. Shultz, B. G. Hogan, and M. C. Stoddard (2025) Hidden white and black feather layers enhance plumage coloration in tanagers and other songbirds. In Revision: Science Advances.

Price-Waldman, R., and M.C. Stoddard. (2021) Avian coloration genetics: Recent advances and emerging questions. Journal of Heredity. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esab015

Fialko, K., J. Ali, L. Céspedes Arias, J. Drucker, K. Nordén, T. Price, R. Price-Waldman, S. Pruett-Jones. (2021) Book review: The Sensory Ecology of Birds. Ornithology ukab001.

Price-Waldman, R., A.J. Shultz, and K.J. Burns. (2020) Speciation rates are correlated with changes in plumage color complexity in the largest family of songbirds. Evolution 74 (6): 1155-1169 https://doi.org/10.1111/evo.13982

Doane, M.P., [...multiple authors], R. Price-Waldman, R.A. Edwards, and E.A. Dinsdale. (2020) The major evolutionary split between elasmobranchs and teleost fishes extends to the diversity partitioning of the skin microbiomes. Microbiome 8 (93)

Bahlman, J.W., R. Price-Waldman, H.W. Lippe, K.S. Breuer, and S.M. Swartz. (2016) Simplifying a wing: diversity and functional consequences of digital joint reduction in bat wings. Journal of Anatomy 229 (1): 114-27 https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.12457

Kasprak, A.H., J. Sepulveda, R. Price-Waldman, K.H. Williford, S. Schoepfer, J.W. Haggart, P.D. Ward, R.E. Summons, and J.E. Whiteside. (2015) Episodic photic zone euxinia in the northeastern Panthalassic Ocean during the end-Triassic extinction. Geology 43: 307-310 https://doi.org/10.1130/G36371.1

Selected awards & funding

2023-24

2023

2022

2021

2021

2021

2017

2014

Finalist, Society for the Study of Evolution Hamilton Award

American Ornithology Society Council Student Presentation Award

Society for the Study of Evolution Rosemary Grant Award ($2780)

American Museum of Natural History Chapman Award ($1500)

American Ornithological Society Wetmore Award ($2500)

Princeton University Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Seed Funding ($2500)

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship ($138000)

Richard J. Goss Prize for Honors Thesis (Brown University)

Skills

Microscopy and Imaging
Confocal microscopy; scanning electron microscopy; transmission electron microscopy; UV-vis reflectance spectrophotometry; multispectral imaging; microspectrophotometry

Bioinformatics
Common programs for phylogenetic inference (RAxML and ExaML, IQTree, ASTRAL, SVD Quartets); assembly and analysis of genomic data (BAMtools, SAMtools, Trinity, etc); data analysis and phylogenetic comparative methods (R, Python, Linux).

Lab
Aspects of molecular lab work including extraction of genomic DNA from tissues, historical avian specimens, mammalian fecal samples; DNA quantification and visualization with gel electrophoresis, Qubit, and Bioanalysis; targeted sequence capture of ultraconserved elements (UCEs), PCR.

Field
Camera trap setup; avian field work (basic skills in mist netting, handling birds, sample collection, specimen prep); navigation and orienteering; first aid/CPR.

Creative
Scientific illustration and design.

Last Updated May 2025

Research

Teaching, Mentoring, Illustration

Teaching

In addition to working as a teaching assistant during my PhD, Masters, and undergraduate, I earned a certification in Evidence-based Teaching from the Center for Teaching and Learning at San Diego State University in 2018. From 2020 to 2023, I worked as a Teaching Fellow with the McGraw Center at Princeton University, where I developed pedagogy workshops and led teaching orientations for other graduate student instructors.

Courses

Genomics in the Wild (Princeton Field Course, Laikipia, Kenya) - Assistant in Instruction, Spring 2023

Evolutionary Biology (Princeton University) - Assistant in Instruction, Fall 2019

Evolutionary Biology (San Diego State University) - Teaching Assistant, Fall 2018

Introductory Biology (San Diego State University) - Teaching Assistant, Fall 2016 and Fall 2017

Invertebrate Zoology (Brown University) - Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, Fall 2012 and Fall 2013

Mentoring, outreach, science education

I work closely with Princeton thesis students and undergraduate researchers to develop projects and conduct museum-based research, and I work with the Princeton Better for Birds Project to mitigate the impacts of window collisions on Princeton’s campus. From 2020-2022 I co-organized and developed Princeton EEB Mentors, a program which connects students interested in applying to Ecology and Evolutionary Biology graduate programs with current Princeton EEB graduate students and postdocs who support them through the process of applying to graduate school. In the past I was an AmeriCorps Field Education Intern at the Teton Science Schools and a mentor with the Outdoor Leadership and Environmental Education Program. In both programs I developed and taught biology, natural history, and environmental justice curricula.

Illustrations

Overview

Feather microstructure and macrostructure

Colorful plumage in birds is the result of pigments that selectively absorb light to produce yellow, orange, and red, and nanostructures that selectively reflect light to produce blue and violet. Pigments and nanostructures within the feather are increasingly well-characterized, yet many aspects of color production in feathers remain enigmatic and underexplored. I'm interested in how variation in feather microstructures (the microscale branches of the feather, called barbs and barbules) and feather macrostructure (the size, shape, and arrangement of feathers on the body) can enhance the colors produced by pigments and nanostructures within the feather. How do evolutionary changes in barbs and barbules alter feather color, and are microstructural modifications that enhance coloration constrained by selection for other feather functions? At the macrostructural scale, how do optical interactions among different layers of feathers shape overall plumage coloration, and how does selection for coloration act on hidden layers of feathers in addition to visible, colorful layers of feathers? I'm using a range of imaging techniques (confocal and electron microscopy, multispectral and hyperspectral imaging, reflectance spectrophotometry and microspectrophotometry), optical modeling, and phylogenetic comparative methods to investigate these questions in tanagers and other birds.

Genetics and development of coloration

A wide range of genetic and developmental mechanisms underlie the diversity of colors and patterns that make avian feathers, skin, eyes and eggs so stunning. I'm interested in the genetic and developmental bases of coloration, and particularly in understanding how new optical effects evolve in feathers through cooption, modification, or reorganization of existing genetic and developmental pathways. I'm currently studying these questions in a range of birds, and am especially intruiged by non-model systems and unusual color phenotypes.

Phylogenetics and macroevolution

Macroevolutionary approaches to understanding trait evolution rely on phylogenies. As part of my Masters work with Kevin Burns, I used ultraconserved elements (UCEs) sequenced from museum tissues to infer phylogenies of tanagers (Aves: Thraupidae), the largest family of songbirds. I used these phylogenies and previously published datasets of tanager traits (plumage, song, niche, morphology) to investigate macroevolutionary correlates of speciation rates in tanagers, with a particular focus on traits under social and sexual selection (plumage, song) relative to traits under natural selection (niche, morphology).

Other interests and past projects

Bat wing evolution
As an undergraduate researcher and research assistant in the Swartz Lab, I studied the evolution and function of bat wing muscles and joints.

Conservation genetics
I spent three field seasons as a Biological Sciences Technician for the Sierra Nevada Carnivore Monitoring Program before beginning my Masters.

Mass extinctions
As an undergraduate researcher in the Whiteside Lab, I studied the ocean geochemistry of the end-Triassic mass extinction.