Morgan Moeglein

“It's a big mental step to move from student to researcher and I encourage my students to cultivate patience with this process.”

Morgan Moeglein studies the evolution of leaf form across plants. Her research investigates leaf form variation at multiple scales, from within individuals to across species. This work combines tools from molecular and developmental biology with extensive field observations to make sense of naturally occurring morphological diversity in leaf shape. Research in her lab currently focuses on how long-lived woody plants invest in leaf development across seasons and how changes in genome size and chromosome number affect leaf growth and shape.

Ph.D. Yale University
M.S. Brown University 
B.S. University of Vermont

Morgan Moeglein conducts research in plant evolutionary biology researching the evolution or genome size variation, leaf morphology, and sometimes how these topics overlap. Her journey began when she started doing research as an undergraduate to earn money through the federal work-study program. She applied for a work study position feeding spiders in an ecology lab before rotating through other research jobs on campus. She actively mentors students and recommends that they try to read widely about their research topic and never feel they are asking too many questions of their mentor. She collaborates with colleagues at Norwich and beyond, including being an affiliate of the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University to continue to work with the plant research community there.

BI 101 Principles of Biology Lab
BI 303 Genetics
BI 399 Plant Development and Physiology

Donoghue, M.J., Eaton, D.A., Maya-Lastra, C.A., Landis, M.J., Sweeney, P.W., Olson, M.E., Cacho, N.I., Moeglein, M.K., Gardner, J.R., Heaphy, N.M. and Castorena, M., 2022. Replicated radiation of a plant clade along a cloud forest archipelago. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 6(9), pp.1318-1329.

Moeglein, M.K., 2021. The Roles of Polyploidy, Climate, and Genetic Architecture in the Evolution of Leaf Form in Viburnum (Adoxaceae) (Doctoral dissertation, Yale University.)

Moeglein, M.K., Chatelet, D.S., Donoghue, M.J. and Edwards, E.J., 2020. Evolutionary dynamics of genome size in a radiation of woody plants. American Journal of Botany, 107(11), pp.1527-1541.