My training is as a plant systematist, studying the evolutionary relationships of flowering plants. Beginning with my doctoral work I have been interested in genome duplication, and my work in this area involves comparative genomics of polyploid species. Most of this work involves the large and economically important legume family ("beans"), where projects include studies addressing the origin of nodulation (symbiotic nitrogen fixation) and the study of gene families involved in cell wall synthesis, aimed at developing alfalfa (a polyploid) as a biofuels crop, particularly soybean and its wild relatives. Soybean and, particularly, its wild relatives have been the focus of much work, developing the latter into a model system for studying natural allopolyploidy.