Judith Mank


Judith Elizabeth Mank is an American-British-Canadian zoologist who is a Canada 150 Chair at the University of British Columbia. She studies how evolution produces variation in animals. She is known for her studies of sex chromosomes and the genetic basis of sexual dimorphism. Her research has focused on various animals to study how sexual selection influences gene expression and genomic architecture.

Early life and education

Mank studied anthropology at the University of Florida. She moved to Pennsylvania State University for graduate studies, joining the School of Forest Resources. After completing her master's degree she moved to the University of Georgia for doctoral research with John Avise. Her research focused on reproductive diversity in fish.

Research and career

Following her postdoctoral work at Uppsala University, Mank was a lecturer at the University of Oxford from 2008-2012, and then professor at University College London from 2012-2018. She joined the faculty at the University of British Columbia in 2018 as a professor and Canada 150 Chair in Evolutionary Genomics. Her research includes the evolution of sex chromosomes and the genetics underlying sex differences. Her work has revealed fundamental properties of the earliest stages of Y chromosomes formation. Mank makes use of genomic data to understand how ecological factors, such as sexual selection, effect genome evolution, and how sex differences are encoded within the genome. She has studied the genetics of female mate preference in guppies, and how this affects the diversity and genetics of pigmentation in males.

Awards and honors

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