William Shoemaker

Postdoctoral Fellows
Postdoctoral Fellow
A picture of me on a fishing boat off the Florida coast.
+39 040 2240 142
wshoemak@ictp.it
I study the evolution and ecology of microbial communities. Biologist by training, working on learning statistical physics.

I study the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of microbial communities. I have a Ph.D in Biology from Indiana University Bloomington where I was a member of the Lennon Lab and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Garud Lab at UCLA. I am currently a fellow in the Quantitative Ecology and Evolution Group at The Abdus Salam Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) where I am advised by Dr. Jacopo Grilli. While I was trained as a biologist, during my Ph.D. I became inspired by the ongoing physics-driven transformation of microbial ecology and evolution and made the deliberate choice to use the postdoc stage to build a statistical physicist’s intuition and understanding of microbial communities. By applying principles from statistical physics, I believe that biologists can readily adopt a wholly quantitative and predictive framework that is capable of welding dynamic models of measurable quantities to high-throughput experiments.

My research can be coarse-grained into the following efforts:

      - Identifying macroecological patterns in microbial communities.

      - Characterizing microbial ecology and evolution in low-energy environments.

      - Examining the macroecological dynamics of strain-level structure in the human gut microbiome.

These interests are consolidated by a shared rule: by coupling experimental and observational data with intuitive mathematical models containing few, if any, free parameters, we can gain greater insight into biological systems. At present, I primarily use computational and mathematical tools to perform my research, though I have considerable wet lab experience and have performed field research in temperate and tropical environments.

In my free time, I enjoy cooking, lifting, reading, film, and car repair.

Publications

Journal article
2023
PLOS ONE (2023)
William R. Shoemaker
Journal article
2023
mBio (2023)
Richard Wolff | William R. Shoemaker | Nandita Garud
Journal article
2023
The ISME Journal (2023)
Daniel Schwartz | William R. Shoemaker | Andreea Măgălie | Joshua Weitz | Jay T. Lennon
Journal article
2022
Genetics (2022)
William R. Shoemaker | Evgeniya Polezhaeva | Kenzie B Givens | Jay T. Lennon
Journal article
2022
FEMS Microbiology Ecology (2022)
Myra Hughey | Eria A Rebollar | Reid N Harris | Roberto Ibáñez | Stephen C Loftus | Leanna L House | Kevin P C Minbiole | Molly C Bletz | Daniel Medina | William R. Shoemaker | Meredith C Swartwout | Lisa K Belden
Journal article
2022
mSphere (2022)
William R. Shoemaker | Jay T. Lennon
Journal article
2022
Genome Biology and Evolution (2022)
William R. Shoemaker | Daisy Chen | Nandita R Garud
Journal article
2021
Molecular Biology and Evolution (2021)
William R. Shoemaker | Evgeniya Polezhaeva | Kenzie B Givens | Jay T Lennon
Journal article
2021
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021)
William R. Shoemaker | Stuart E. Jones | Mario E. Muscarella | Megan Behringer | Brent K. Lehmkuhl | Jay T. Lennon
Journal article
2018
Nature Ecology & Evolution (2018)
Hongan Long | Way Sung | Sibel Kucukyildirim | Emily Williams | Samuel F. Miller | Wanfeng Guo | Caitlyn Patterson | Colin Gregory | Chloe Strauss | Casey Stone | Cécile Berne | David Kysela | William R. Shoemaker | Mario E. Muscarella ...
Journal article
2018
Evolutionary Applications (2018)
William R. Shoemaker | Jay T. Lennon
Journal article
2017
Nature Ecology & Evolution (2017)
William R. Shoemaker | Kenneth J. Locey | Jay T. Lennon
Journal article
2017
Genome Announcements (2017)
V. Kuo | W. R. Shoemaker | M. E. Muscarella | J. T. Lennon
Journal article
2016
Applied and Environmental Microbiology (2016)
Eria A. Rebollar | Stephen J. Simonetti | William R. Shoemaker | Reid N. Harris
Journal article
2015
Genome Announcements (2015)
William R. Shoemaker | Mario E. Muscarella | Jay T. Lennon

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