Phillip A. Morin, Ph.D.

Phillip Morin is a population genetics and genomics researcher in the Marine Mammal Genetics Group. Since joining the group in 2003, his research has focused on applying genetic and genomics tools to infer taxonomy, phylogeography, population structure, and historical changes in population size of cetaceans. This research supports the conservation and management of cetaceans under the US Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act. Phillip is also the coordinator of the Cetacean Genomes Project—an international collaboration to sequence reference genomes for all cetacean species—and a former Adjunct Professor (2008-2017) at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego.

 Selected publications

• Robinson, J. A., Kyriazis, C. C., Nigenda-Morales, S. F., Beichman, A. C., Rojas-Bracho, L., Robertson, K. M., . . . Morin, P. A. (2022). The critically endangered vaquita is not doomed to extinction by inbreeding depression. Science, 376(6593), 635–639. doi:10.1126/science.abm1742

  Morin, P. A., Forester, B. R., Forney, K. A., Crossman, C. A., Hancock-Hanser, B., Robertson, K. M., . . . Parsons, K. (2021). Population structure in a continuously distributed coastal marine species, the harbor porpoise, based on microhaplotypes derived from poor quality samples. Molecular Ecology, 30(6), 1457-1476. doi:10.1111/mec.15827

  Morin, P. A., Archer, F. I., Avila, C. D., Balacco, J. R., Bukham, Y. V., Chow, W., . . . Jarvis, E. D. (2021). Reference genome and demographic history of the most endangered marine mammal, the vaquita. Molecular Ecology Resources, 21(4), 1008-1020. doi:10.1111/1755-0998.13284

  Foote, A. D., Hooper, R., Alexander, A., Baird, R. W., Baker, C. S., Ballance, L., . . . Morin, P. A. (2021). Runs of homozygosity in killer whale genomes provide a global record of demographic histories. Molecular Ecology, 30(23), 6162-6177. doi:10.1111/mec.16137

  Carroll, E. L., McGowen, M. R., M L McCarthy, Marx, F. G., Aguilar, N., Dalebout, M. L., . . . Tange Olsen, M. (2021). Speciation in the deep: genomics and morphology reveal a new species of beaked whale Mesoplodon eueu. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Biology, 288(1961), 20211213. doi:10.1098/rspb.2021.1213