Vanessa González

• Ph.D. Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
• M.S. California State University, Los Angeles (Biological Systematics)
• B.S. University of California, Los Angeles (Marine Biology)

I currently serve as a Computational Genomics Scientist for IDSC Genomics—an initiative aimed at preserving and understanding the genomic diversity of life. My research focuses on understanding how species are related across the tree of life. I lead projects　in genome biology and evolutionary bioinformatics, specializing on working with "big data." After receiving my Ph.D. from the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in 2013, I began research at the Smithsonian focusing broadly on biodiversity genomics, systematics, and invertebrate biology.

Areas of Expertise: Systematics, Evolution, Invertebrate Zoology, Biodiversity Genomics & Bioinformatics.

Journal Article

• Giles, Emily C., González, Vanessa L., Carimán, Paulina, Leiva, Carlos, Suescún, Ana Victoria, Lemer, Sarah, Guillemin, Marie Laure, Ortiz‐Barrientos, Daniel, and Saenz‐Agudelo, Pablo. 2025. "Comparative Genomics Points to Ecological Drivers of Genomic Divergence Among Intertidal Limpets." Molecular Ecology Resources, https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.14075.
• Schwartz, Lindsey C., González, Vanessa L., Strong, Ellen E., Truebano, Manuela, and Hilbish, Thomas J. 2024. "Transgressive gene expression and expression plasticity under thermal stress in a stable hybrid zone." Molecular ecology, https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.17333.
• Arcila, Dahiana, Rincon-Sandoval, Melissa, Hanson, William, Hart, Pamela B., González, Vanessa L., Betancur-R, Ricardo, and Bichuette, Maria E. 2023. "Transcriptomic analysis of the Brazilian blind characid, Stygichthys typhlops, reveals convergent selection with Astyanax mexicanus and other cavefishes." Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11 1076756. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2023.1076756.
• Gonzalez, Brett C., González, Vanessa L., Martínez, Alejandro, Worsaae, Katrine, and Osborn, Karen J. 2023. "A transcriptome-based phylogeny for Polynoidae (Annelida: Aphroditiformia)." Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 185. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2023.107811.
• Canty, Steven W. J., Kennedy, John Paul, Fox, Graeme, Matterson, Kenan, Gonzalez, Vanessa L., Nunez-Vallecillo, Mayra L., Preziosi, Richard F., and Rowntree, Jennifer K. 2022. "Mangrove diversity is more than fringe deep." Scientific Reports, 12, (1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05847-y.
• Ellis, Emily A., Goodheart, Jessica A., Hensley, Nicholai M., González, Vanessa L., Reda, Nicholas J., Rivers, Trevor J., Morin, James G., Torres, Elizabeth, Gerrish, Gretchen A., and Oakley, Todd H. 2022. "Sexual Signals Persist over Deep Time: Ancient Co-option of Bioluminescence for Courtship Displays in Cypridinid Ostracods." Systematic Biology, https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syac057.
• Uribe, Juan E., González, Vanessa L., Irisarri, Iker, Kano, Yasunori, Herbert, David G., Strong, Ellen E., and Harasewych, M. G. 2022. "A Phylogenomic Backbone for Gastropod Molluscs." Systematic Biology, 71, (6) 1271–1280. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syac045.
• Gainett, Guilherme, González, Vanessa L., Ballesteros, Jesus A., Setton, Emily V. W., Baker, Caitlin M., Barolo Gargiulo, Leonardo, Santibanez-Lopez, Carlos E., Coddington, Jonathan A., and Sharma, Prashant P. 2021. "The genome of a daddy-long-legs (Opiliones) illuminates the evolution of arachnid appendages." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288, (1956). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2021.1168.
• Olsen, Lindsey K., Heckenhauer, Jacqueline, Sproul, John S., Dikow, Rebecca B., González, Vanessa L., Kweskin, Matthew P., Taylor, Adam M., Wilson, Seth B., Stewart, Russell J., Zhou, Xin, Holzenthal, Ralph, Pauls, Steffen U., and Frandsen, Paul B. 2021. "Draft Genome Assemblies and Annotations of Agrypnia vestita Walker, and Hesperophylax magnus Banks Reveal Substantial Repetitive Element Expansion in Tube Case-Making Caddisflies (Insecta: Trichoptera)." Genome Biology and Evolution, 13, (3). https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evab013.
• Macey, J. Robert, Pabinger, Stephan, Barbieri, Charles G., Buring, Ella S., González, Vanessa L., Mulcahy, Daniel G., DeMeo, Dustin P., Urban, Lara, Hime, Paul M., Prost, Stefan, Elliott, Aaron N., and Gemmell, Neil J. 2021. "Evidence of two deeply divergent co-existing mitochondrial genomes in the Tuatara reveals an extremely complex genomic organization." Communications Biology, 4, (1) Article 116. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-01639-0.
• Buenaventura, Eliana, Lloyd, Michael W., Perilla Lopez, Juan Manuel, González, Vanessa L., Thomas-Cabianca, Arianna, and Dikow, Torsten. 2020. "Protein-encoding ultraconserved elements provide a new phylogenomic perspective of Oestroidea flies (Diptera: Calyptratae)." Systematic Entomology, https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.12443.
• Gemmell, Neil J., Rutherford, Kim, Prost, Stefan, Tollis, Marc, Winter, David, Macey, J. R., Adelson, David L., Suh, Alexander, Bertozzi, Terry, Grau, José H., Organ, Chris, Gardner, Paul P., Muffato, Matthieu, Patricio, Mateus, Billis, Konstantinos, Martin, Fergal J., Flicek, Paul, Petersen, Bent, Kang, Lin, Michalak, Pawel, Buckley, Thomas R., Wilson, Melissa, Cheng, Yuanyuan, Miller, Hilary, Schott, Ryan K. et al. 2020. "The tuatara genome reveals ancient features of amniote evolution." Nature, 584 403–409. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2561-9.
• Gemmell, Neil J., Rutherford, Kim, Prost, Stefan, Tollis, Marc, Winter, David, Macey, J. R., Adelson, David L., Suh, Alexander, Bertozzi, Terry, Grau, José H., Organ, Chris, Gardner, Paul P., Muffato, Matthieu, Patricio, Mateus, Billis, Konstantinos, Martin, Fergal J., Flicek, Paul, Petersen, Bent, Kang, Lin, Michalak, Pawel, Buckley, Thomas R., Wilson, Melissa, Cheng, Yuanyuan, Miller, Hilary, Schott, Ryan K. et al. 2020. "Publisher Correction: The tuatara genome reveals ancient features of amniote evolution." Nature, 585 e3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2661-6.
• Harasewych, M. G., Sei, Makiri, Wirshing, Herman H., González, Vanessa L., and Uribe, Juan E. 2019. "The complete mitochondrial genome of Neptuneopsis gilchristi GB Sowerby III, 1898 (Neogastropoda: Volutidae: Calliotectinae)." The Nautilus, 133, (3-4) 67–73.
• González, Vanessa L., Devine, Amanda M., Trizna, Mike, Mulcahy, Daniel G., Barker, Katherine, and Coddington, Jonathan A. 2018. "Open access genomic resources for terrestrial arthropods." Current Opinion in Insect Science, 25 91–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2017.12.003.
• Wood, Hannah M., González, Vanessa L., Lloyd, Michael, Coddington, Jonathan, and Scharff, Nikolaj. 2018. "Next-Generation museum genomics: phylogenetic relationships among palpimanoid spiders using sequence capture techniques (Araneae: Palpimanoidea)." Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 127 907–918. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2018.06.038.
• Harasewych, M. G., González, Vanessa L., Windsor, Amanda M., and Halloran, Margaret. 2017. "The complete mitochondrial genome of Cerion uva uva (Gastropoda: Panpulmonata: Stylommatophora: Cerionidae)." Mitochondrial DNA Part B. Resources, 2, (1) 159–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/23802359.2017.1303343.
• Schwager, Evelyn E., Sharma, Prashant P., Clarke, Thomas, Leite, Daniel J., Wierschin, Torsten, Pechmann, Matthias, Akiyama-Oda, Yasuko, Esposito, Lauren, Bechsgaard, Jesper, Bilde, Trine, Buffry, Alexandra D., Chao, Hsu, Dinh, Huyen, Doddapaneni, HarshaVardhan, Dugan, Shannon, Eibner, Cornelius, Extavour, Cassandra G., Funch, Peter, Garb, Jessica, Gonzalez, Luis B., González, Vanessa L., Griffiths-Jones, Sam, Han, Yi, Hayashi, Cheryl, Hilbrant, Maarten et al. 2017. "The house spider genome reveals an ancient whole-genome duplication during arachnid evolution." BMC biology, 15, (1) 62. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-017-0399-x.
• González, Vanessa L., Kayal, Ehsan, Halloran, Margaret, Shrestha, Yesha, and Harasewych, M. G. 2016. "The complete mitochondrial genome of the land snail Cerion incanum (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora) and the phylogenetic relationships of Cerionidae within Panpulmonata." Journal of Molluscan Studies, 82, (4) 525–533. https://doi.org/10.1093/mollus/eyw017.
• Ješovnik, Ana, González, Vanessa L., and Schultz, Ted R. 2016. "Phylogenomics and Divergence Dating of Fungus-Farming Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) of the Genera Sericomyrmex and Apterostigma." PloS One, 11, (7). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151059.
• Lemer, Sarah, González, Vanessa L., Bieler, Rü, and Giribet, Gonzalo. 2016. "Cementing mussels to oysters in the pteriomorphian tree: a phylogenomic approach." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 283, (1833) 20160857. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2016.0857.
• Lemer, Sarah, Kawauchi, Gisele Y., Andrade, Sónia C. S., González, Vanessa L., Boyle, Michael J., and Giribet, Gonzalo. 2015. "Re-evaluating the phylogeny of Sipuncula through transcriptomics." Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 83 174–183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2014.10.019.
• Bieler, Ruediger, Mikkelsen, Paula M., Collins, Timothy M., Glover, Emily A., González, Vanessa L., Graf, Daniel L., Harper, Elizabeth M., Healy, John, Kawauchi, Gisele Y., Sharma, Prashant P., Staubach, Sid, Strong, Ellen E., Taylor, John D., Temkin, Ilya, Zardus, John D., Clark, Stephanie, Guzman, Alejandra, McIntyre, Erin, Sharp, Paul, and Giribet, Gonzalo. 2014. "Investigating the Bivalve Tree of Life - an exemplar-based approach combining molecular and novel morphological characters." Invertebrate Systematics, 28, (1) 32–115. https://doi.org/10.1071/IS13010.

Dataset

• González, Vanessa L. 2023. [Dataset] Data Backbone Files -- Smithsonian Gap Analysis Tool. Distributed by National Museum of Natural History. https://doi.org/10.25573/DATA.24279694.
• González, Vanessa L. 2023. [Dataset] GBIF Data Backbone File. Distributed by National Museum of Natural History. https://doi.org/10.25573/DATA.24280102.
• González, Vanessa L. 2023. [Dataset] GGBN Genbank Data Backbone File. Distributed by National Museum of Natural History. https://doi.org/10.25573/DATA.24279739.
• González, Vanessa L. 2023. [Dataset] NCBI Genbank Data Backbone File. Distributed by National Museum of Natural History. https://doi.org/10.25573/DATA.24280123.
• Uribe, Juan E., González, Vanessa L., Irisarri, Iker, Kano, Yasunori, Herbert, David G., Strong, Ellen E., and Harasewych, M. G. 2022. [Dataset] A phylogenomic backbone for gastropod molluscs. Distributed by Dryad. https://doi.org/10.5061/DRYAD.ZCRJDFNG6.