Bio

Evolutionary ecologist, plant biologist, and geneticist Moises (Moi) Exposito-Alonso is a Carnegie Staff Associate at the Departments of Plant Biology and Global Ecology from the Carnegie Institution for Science and Assistant Professor (by courtesy) of Biology at Stanford University. Moi received a B.S. in biology from the University of Seville, Spain and an MSc degree in quantitative and population genetics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He earned his Ph.D. in 2018 supervised by Detlef Weigel through the EDGE program (evolution, development, ecology, genetics)  at the Max Planck Institute of Biology in Tübingen, Germany. After a few months-long-postdoctoral fellowship in statistical genetics at the University of California Berkeley with Rasmus Nielsen, he joined the faculty at Carnegie and Stanford in 2019. In 2024, Moi transitioned his lab to the University of California Berkeley as Assistant Professor of Global Change Biology in the Integrative Biology Department and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Moi investigates whether and how plants will evolve to keep pace with climate change by conducting large-scale ecological and genome sequencing experiments. He also develops computational methods to derive fundamental principles of evolution, such as how fast natural populations acquire new mutations and how past climates shaped continental-scale biodiversity patterns. His goal is to use these “first principles” and computational approaches to forecast evolutionary outcomes of populations under climate change to anticipate potential future biodiversity losses. Moi wants to use this knowledge and new genome engineering methods to help species adapt to climate change instead of becoming extinct.   

2024-on | Freeman Hrabowski Scholar, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Berkeley, CA

2024-on | Assistant Professor of Global Change Biology, University of California Berkeley, CA

2019-on | Assistant Professor (By Courtesy) of Biology, Stanford University, CA

2019-on | Principal Investigator, Carnegie Staff Associate | Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA

2019 (5 mo) | Postdoc in Statistical Genetics | University of California Berkeley, CA

2014-18 | PhD in Eco-Evolutionary Genomics | Max Planck Institute Dev. Biology, Germany

2013-14 | MSc in Quantitative Genomics | University of Edinburgh, UK

2011-13 | Research Assistant | Biological Station of Doñana CSIC, Spain

2008-13 | Bsc in Biology | University Sevilla & Alicante, Spain

Awards

• Freeman Hrabowski Scholar, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA

• Early Career Faculty Award, American Society of Plant Biology USA

• Tansley Medal for Excellence in Plant Sciences, New Phytologist, Global

• National Institutes of Health Director’s Early Independence Award, USA

• James F. Crow Early Career Award Finalist of the Genetic Society of America, USA

• Forbes’ 30 Under 30 (Science and Healthcare), Europe

• The American Naturalist Young Scientist Award, USA

• Otto Hahn Medal from the Max Planck Institute, Germany

• Karl-Freudenberg Award of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, Germany

• Young Scientist Award, National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina), Germany

• Wilhelm Pfeffer Dissertation Prize, German Botanical Society, Germany

• Real Maestranza de caballería (Royal Cavalry of Seville Award) of Seville, Spain

• Spanish Research Council Scholarship for Early Access to Research CSIC JAE, Spain

Service

• Consulting San Francisco Exploratorium (https://www.exploratorium.edu)

• Consulting Google X  (X Development, the moonshot factory, https://x.company)

• Board, Plant Postdocs (https://plantpostdocs.com)