Rate My Professor Graham Wallis

University of Otago

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5.04/23/2026

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About Graham

Professor Graham Wallis is an Emeritus Professor (Genetics) in the Department of Zoology within the Division of Sciences at the University of Otago, with emeritus status appointed on 8 June 2021. His primary research specializations encompass population genetics, molecular evolution, molecular systematics and biogeography of endemic species, and genetics of hybrid zones. He possesses extensive expertise in evolutionary genetics, systematics, phylogeography, hybridisation, and molecular evolution, with a particular focus on freshwater fishes and New Zealand endemic taxa. Keywords associated with his work include evolutionary genetics, systematics, hybridisation, and phylogeography.

Throughout his tenure at the University of Otago, Professor Wallis has supervised numerous graduate students and hosted postdocs funded by Marsden and FoRST grants. Recent PhD students under his supervision have explored phylogeography and the evolution of melanism in the alpine weta Hemideina maori, phylogeography of Pacific landsnails, evolutionary genetics of southern stoneflies, evolutionary ecology of southern galaxiid fishes, and world-wide phylogeography of the brooding brittle star Amphipholis squamata. MSc students have investigated genetic analysis of hybridisation in New Zealand galaxiid fish and population genetics of the sea snake star Astrobrachion constrictum in Fiordland. Postdoctoral researchers have conducted comparative transcriptomics of migratory and stream-resident galaxiid fishes, phylogeography and population genetic structuring of koura Paranephrops spp., molecular systematics of New Zealand galaxiid fish, New Zealand phylogeography evidence from spatio-temporal congruence of invertebrate endemism, and speciation or hybrid zones in Auckland tree weta Hemideina thoracica. Key publications include Wallis and Jorge (2018) 'Going under down under? Lineage ages argue for extensive survival of the Oligocene marine transgression on Zealandia' in Molecular Ecology; Wallis et al. (2017) 'Interspecific hybridization causes long-term phylogenetic discordance between nuclear and mitochondrial genomes in freshwater fishes' in Molecular Ecology; Wallis et al. (2016) 'Transverse alpine speciation driven by glaciation' in Trends in Ecology & Evolution; Wallis and Wallis (2011) 'Extreme positive selection on a new highly-expressed larval glycoprotein (LGP) gene in Galaxias fishes' in Molecular Biology & Evolution; and Waters et al. (2010) 'Gene trees versus species trees: Reassessing life-history evolution in a freshwater fish radiation' in Systematic Biology. His scholarship has amassed over 7,400 citations on Google Scholar. Professor Wallis has served on the Marsden Fund Council and as Past Vice-President of the Society for the Study of Evolution, and he is an Editor at PeerJ.