Research Interests

For his post-doctoral work from 2009-2013 at University of California-Davis (advisor, Dr. Neelima Sinha), Dan studied tomato and wild relatives, applying morphometric approaches (such as elliptical Fourier descriptors) to the genetic analysis of leaf shape. During his time as an Assistant Member at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center from 2013-2017, Dan began exploring the use of persistent homology, a topological data analysis technique, to describe shapes and three-dimensional branching architectures in plants. Dan is eager to continue studies of plant morphology at Michigan State University, using X-ray Computed Tomography to capture the growing branching architectures of plants and using topological data analyses techniques to quantify the plant form.

Chitwood Group: https://chitwoodlab.org