Robin Hopkins is Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. She received her PhD from Duke University where she studied the genetics, ecology, and evolution of speciation in plants. Prior to starting her lab at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, she was awarded a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology to use mathematical models to investigate the role of natural selection in speciation at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research characterizes and quantifies the forces of selection, gene flow, and mutation during the process of speciation. She integrates genetic, genomic, and field bases research to understand the ecological and evolutionary consequences of hybridization, and how closely related plant lineages have evolved barriers to prevent reproducing. Although she loves all plants, her research predominantly uses the North American radiation of Phlox wildflowers.