Assistant Professor

Curator of Invertebrates

University of Vermont

Department of Biology

316 Marsh Life Science




Mailing Address:

120A Marsh Life Science

109 Carrigan Drive

Burlington, VT 05405


Research


CV


My research program is focused on taxonomy of the wasp family Vespidae.  Combining time-honored data from sources such as adult morphology, larval morphology, and behavioral attributes with more modern molecular data, I conduct revisionary taxonomy, phylogenetic systematics, and investigations into the evolution of social behavior across the family.  My research also extends to the role of taxonomy in biology, and I investigate various methodological and computational issues in phylogenetics.

 

Kurt M. Pickett, Ph.D.

Images above: Left: Pickett holds an intact Metapolybia envelope; right top: aedeagus of Apoica pallida; right, lower left: Polistes goeldii, left lateral thorax; right, lower right: Apoica albimacula colony on nest (credit Horacio Paz). Immediate left: Kurt Pickett. Below: Polistes canadensis.

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Why “Taxonomy?”  Why not say something hip and cool like “Genophylomics?”  Phylogenetic systematics and nomenclature are both sub-disciplines of taxonomy.  Descriptive morphology, behavioral observation, and molecular sequencing—all of these techniques are employed to gather character data that are used in the field of taxonomy. Members of the Pickett Lab are engaged in all of these sub-disciplines, using all of these techniques and data types, and so we use the inclusive, traditional terminology: Taxonomy.  See Wheeler (2004) for an excellent historical treatment.