Associate Professor
Associate Chair
Room 138 Giltner Hall
Department of Integrative Biology
Michigan State University
517-884-7756 (office)
jgallant@msu.edu
I am an evolutionary biologist who studies the genomic basis of convergently evolved behavioral phenotypes in weakly electric fish. Since opening my lab at Michigan State University in 2013, I’ve had the great fortune of combining fieldwork in tropical rivers, bench science, computational genomics, and an enthusiastic team of collaborators and students to ask how novel traits evolve — and why they matter.
My research program focuses on electric fish, which have independently evolved electric organs six times (Darwin himself was fascinated by this). These fish use electricity to talk, navigate, and sometimes even hunt. They’ve essentially run nature’s experiment in “replaying the tape of life,” and my lab takes advantage of that replication to study the connection between genomes and novel phenotypes.
Research Areas
- The Origin of Electric Organs – How do muscles turn into batteries? We investigate the “toolkit” of genes repurposed for electric organs across multiple lineages, and what this reveals about the rules (and constraints) of complex trait evolution.
- The Genetic Basis of Electric Signal Diversity – African mormyrid fishes produce an incredible diversity of electric organ discharges (EODs). We study how this diversity evolves, the genes behind it, and how it influences speciation and behavior.
- Potassium Channels and Signal Evolution – In collaboration with Harold Zakon’s lab, we discovered that a single potassium channel gene (kcna7a) has been repeatedly tweaked by natural selection to speed up (and sometimes slow down) electric signals. A tiny molecular change can completely reshape a behavior.
- Building Tools for the Community – When I started, electric fish had almost no genomic resources. Now, thanks to my lab and collaborators, we have reference genomes, transcriptomes, CRISPR/Cas9 editing, and even the first transgenic electric fish. We also maintain the EFISH Genomics portal so others can dive in (pun intended).
Our work has been published in Science, Current Biology, Nature Communications, and featured in outlets like NPR, Wired, and Reuters. We’ve been continuously supported by the National Science Foundation since 2015.
Teaching & Mentorship
At MSU, I teach Developmental Biology (IBIO 320) and Evolution (IBIO 445), courses I’ve redesigned with inquiry-based labs, creative assignments, and an emphasis on student-driven discovery. I’ve also developed graduate seminars in genomics and next-generation sequencing.
Mentorship is at the heart of my lab. I’ve trained Ph.D. students, postdocs, technicians, and a small army of undergraduates — many from groups underrepresented in STEM. A personal point of pride: most of my undergrads have gone on to graduate school, and I recently received the 2025 Mentorship Award from the Undergraduate Senior Class Council.
My mentoring philosophy is simple:
- Give students space to fail safely and learn quickly.
- Match projects to individual passions — science sticks best when it matters to you.
- Provide continuous, constructive feedback (sometimes disguised as dad jokes).
- And never forget: progress in science isn’t always linear… but it should always be rewarding.
Outreach
I’m committed to making science accessible and fun. My lab has developed hands-on classroom activities where students can “hear” or “see” the electric signals of fish, inspired by our famous electric fish Christmas tree. Over the past five years, these programs have reached hundreds of elementary and high school students, many from communities with limited access to STEM opportunities.
Between fieldwork in Gabon, late nights debugging code, and mentoring the next generation of biologists, I try to keep science joyful, inclusive, and a little electrifying.
“This is the true joy in life: Being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” - George Bernard Shaw