É«ÃÃAV

Dr. Sackett is an evolutionary biologist whose research centers around the evolution of small populations and the influence of pathogens on evolution of their hosts. Her currently focus is on two main systems: avian malaria in Hawaiian honeycreepers and sylvatic plague in prairie dogs. She is working to characterize the genomic basis of recently evolved resistance/tolerance and to better understand spatial, genomics and ecological constraints on adaptation. 

PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 2012
University of Colorado

BA in Psychology, 2003
Whitman College

• Evolution in small populations
• Conservation genomics
• Ecology and evolution of infectious diseases

• Cassin-Sackett, L., K.M. McClure, T.E. Callicrate, E.H. Paxton, and R.C. Fleischer 2025. Variation in gene expression across infection status and elevation in a Hawaiian honeycreeper. Ecology and Evolution 15(9): e72078.
• Cassin-Sackett, L., Tsuchiya, M.N., R. Dikow 2025. Rapid adaptation to a globally introduced pathogen in a keystone species. PNAS Nexus 4 (7): pgaf199. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.16.613142
• Kyriazis, C.C., M. Venkatraman, B. Masuda, C.C. Steiner, L. Cassin-Sackett, L.H. Crampton, A.M. Flanagan, J.T. Foster, M.L. Houck, A.C. Misuraca, E.H. Paxton, J.A. Robinson, R.C. Fleischer, O.A. Ryder, M.G. Campana, and A.A. Wilder 2025. Population genomics of a collapsing avian radiation in Hawai‘i. Current Biology 35: 2697–2708.
• ​Paxton, K.L., L. Cassin Sackett, C.T. Atkinson, Videvall, E., M.G. Campana, R.C. Fleischer 2023. Gene expression reveals immune response strategies of naive Hawaiian honeycreepers experimentally infected with introduced avian malaria. Journal of Heredity, esad017.
• Kaufmann, C.* and L. Cassin-Sackett 2021. Fine-scale spatial structure of soil microbial communities in the burrows of a keystone rodent. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9: 758348.