Lindsay Miles joined Virginia Tech’s “Curious Conversations” to talk about her research on bed bugs, focusing on genomic sequencing, the history of bed bug populations, and the implications of their mutations. She explained how bed bugs evolved alongside humans, their genetic similarities, and the challenges in managing their populations due to their emerging resistance to pesticides. 

Miles is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Entomology and an affiliate with the Fralin Life Sciences Institute. Her research focuses on population genetics and molecular evolution to understand how urbanization impacts organisms and she is currently studying how urbanization and pesticide use can influence genomic evolution in bed bugs.